Consensus is the currency of politics, not science. Before Einstein there was > 99% consensus that Newtonian gravity was ultimate description of gravitational force.
What is that based on? Scientists use the concept, including in this scientific paper and many others.
> Before Einstein there was > 99% consensus that Newtonian gravity was ultimate description of gravitational force.
Certainly not: They knew there was a lot unknown about gravity; they just didn't have the answers. And after Einstein, there was plenty scientists were aware was unknown, such as the mechanism for mass - the Higgs Boson wasn't discovered until 2012. There's a lot unknown now; no scientist will tell you that we have the ultimate description; for example, we can't reconcile gravity yet with other fundamental forces.
Newton's predictions are accurate to this day, except in the narrow circumstances described by Einstein.
And what does it have to do with climate change? If the predictions are as accurate as Newton, we aren't going to get much more certain information. What alternative theory is a better bet?
What does repeatable experimentation prove?
For that matter, what about the Apple falls to the ground experiment disproved Newton’s theory?
This assumes a very naive view that the average university researcher is trying to challenge prevailing theories on a daily basis. The reality is that challenging prevailing theories of science is near impossible in today's grant-chasing arena called academia. Do you really think a grant proposal that questions some of the prevailing views in climate science is going to get funded? And even if does get funded, good luck getting it published in any mainstream journal.
Heck I can't even challenge my own supervisors when they make swallow statements that are in fact contradicted by a bunch of papers, how could I get funding from external entities by submitting socially unpopular ideas? Impossible, especially in highly politicized fields.
And even if you did, it wouldn't disprove the consensus on climate change in any way. Or are you also saying that all the research was falsified? Any evidence of that?
The correct way to accomplish this is to take something that you think you can disprove, design an experiment that would show that the existing theory may be incorrect and then successfully defend that.
Say for instance you hypothesised that methane doesn't in fact act as a greenhouse gas, you design an experiment that shows that increasing the % methane in the upper atmosphere doesn't result in additional heat being captured. You would then need to collect the results, properly show they are consistent with your hypothesis vs your control data and then defend that in peer review.
In this case you would most likely be wrong because we are pretty damn sure methane isn't great but if you had an idea that had a chance I am sure you could get funding.
It is worth mentioning that the ability to get funding is somewhat correlated with the interestingness and likelihood of a groundbreaking finding. Finding methane is not contributing to greenhouse effect would be a massive finding, however the likelihood it isn't is low because there already exists a huge body of evidence that supports the opposite conclusion.
TLDR: You can definitely work on attempting to prove climate change isn't happening but you probably need a very clever idea as everyone else that has looked at it thus far hasn't come up with anything capable of disproving it.
I would assume that there are organizations that try to fund proposals that question some of the prevailing views in climate science otherwise where do all these papers come from that anti-climate change people like to refer to?
Wouldn't there be a bunch of companies with a lot of wealth and strong incentives to fund that sort of thing?
Put your money where your beliefs are, so to speak
Why does every fossil fuel company accept the science of climate change.
Not just that they are unable to get their contrarian studies published in academic papers.
No, they literally spend a ton of money in Super Bowl ads trying to convince the world that they are trying to reduce climate change.
And they have pages on their websites:
BP: https://www.bp.com/en/global/corporate/sustainability.html
Exxon: https://corporate.exxonmobil.com/Sustainability/Environmenta...
There’s almost no organization other than the American right in the world that currently denies the reality of climate change.
No, science depends on falsifiable theories being tested and proved. The whole point of science is to remove flawed, human bias, of which consensus depends on.
I’m guessing you think God comes down to earth to announce that yea, this theory is proven!
The tests passing or failing. And sure, the tests are designed by humans, but that's why there are controls, and there is no limit on how many tests per hypothesis. Each test can improve on the previous one, every time removing more and more of the bias, if needed.
This is what I'm calling consensus btw. Because in science we don't just trust the experiments of a single person or group. They present it, we say "wow that's cool. Let me try to poke holes in it" and then a bunch of people do that and we gain strong evidence that that person was correct.
This is ahistorical. The Annalen der Physik, where Einstein's four Annus Mirabilis papers were published, did not have peer review.
Only one paper by Einstein was peer reviewed. It was -- in effect -- rejected from Physical Review. While the paper ("Do Gravitational Waves Exist?", with Rosen) was mistaken (in its conclusion of "no"), even then the referee wrote that Einstein "is a man of good scientific standing, and it would seem to me that if he insists, he has more right to be heard than any single referee has to throttle!"
We post papers on ArXiv now and they don't have "peer review", except they do because our peers read them and talk about them, open issues on GitHub, exchange emails, and write blogs. If that isn't peer review, I don't know what is. Your definition of peer review is far too limited and not what science actually is doing.
However, I agree that in the context of this thread, post-publication peer review -- usually referred to by another name -- is very important, as it plays a strong role in the formation of consensus being discussed.
I believe the OP's point was around consensus as truth, rather than which example is used to demonstrate...
The point is that unless you're omniscient, using the best knowledge available at your time to choose which policies to apply is the best course of action. Of course it might later turn out to be wrong, but you don't know in which way it might turn out to be wrong.
This based on where political interference abuses the scientific consensus or manipulates it. As the OP said, there's a difference between science and consensus (not saying I disagree with the climate change consensus, I think it's absolutely an anthropogenic issue)
Funny how this standard is never applied to oil companies. You know, the ones that figured out half a century ago that climate change was a problem, and have been running an interference campaign since then?
Given the state of energy consumption today, the idea that it’s the green side that’s abusing the political process to get what it wants is downright laughable. Meanwhile congress is openly bought by fossil fuel interests, and we can’t even stop burning coal.
> not saying I disagree with the climate change consensus, I think it's absolutely an anthropogenic issue
Ahh, the anti-anti position, how annoying. You’re convinced that climate change is real, but you’re going to waste a lot of time making bad arguments about consensus and scientific change because…? For someone who thinks it’s “absolutely” an anthropogenic issue, you sure are trying to muddy the water a lot.
I am always happy though to argue for space to exist for those that I disagree with to speak, we are in the most trouble when only the 'truth' - as much is it seems certain - is allowed to exist at all.
We tend not to care if we agree with the consensus, but imagine if Facebook/Twitter decided (or were influenced to...) that Solar energy solutions are misinformation and started removing/labeling that content. Is that fine, or is it a trickier question when you no longer agree with the 'truth' they are protecting?
You’re wasting a huge amount of energy and time arguing about … well to be honest, I can’t figure out what your point is. Consensus is bad? Consensus is wrong because science changes? Consensus leads to censorship? Your point seems to shift around every time someone gives a counter argument, which makes me doubt that you’re acting in good faith.
Only if you go back far enough to predate the notion of the scientific method. Plato wrote "My conviction is that the Earth is a round body in the centre of the heavens" in about 400BC, nearly 2500 years ago.
E.g. Dante's Divine Comedy contained a detailed explanation of how the Earth is round, including a description of how this means daytime comes at different times in different locations in the 14th century, well before the fanciful fictional descriptions of Columbus struggling to convince people the earth was round (rather than the more realistic argument over distance)
Dante wasn't first in literature by any means either, and at most the detail in which it is described might indicate it was something he may have thought his audience were unfamiliar with the consequences of, but it doesn't appear to be presented as some shocking, controversial idea even for a non-scientific audience, more than just illustrating the sheer scale involved.
It's interesting how the notion that the belief in a flat earth was widespread, may well be far more widespread today than the belief itself was.
Not in science. The difference is everything: Scientific knowledge has proven to be accurate. Other methods have been much less successful.
Re. Newtonian physics, the scientific method demonstrated otherwise. That’s how it works.
Your point simply means that anthropogenic climate change may be incorrect. However, currently, it’s far and away the most likely explanation.
This is something that is often misunderstood by those who dismiss scientific knowledge: accumulated observations and experiments don't end up in the trash. Any new breakthrough theory is first going to have to be in agreement with all of them.
That's why classical mechanics is still not only taught at school, but also widely used by engineers to this day: it's extremely accurate (within some bounds).
Your analogy doesn't work.
The consensus on man-made climate change has grown following the rise of aggressive identity politics and "social justice warrior" cancel culture on social media.
Looking at another political/scientific issue, abortion, that is also steeped in aggressive identity politics and "social justice warrior" cancel culture which instead of growing in consensus that it is bad seems to be declining, I would argue that politics and social power follow rational thinking, not the other way around. At least on long enough time scales.
So many person-hours spent arguing this point online. So much of our lives. I'm as guilty as anyone.
Yes, "someone's wrong on the Internet", haha. But really. This guy isn't arguing in good faith. Frankly at this point nobody arguing online that climate change is not real is arguing in good faith.
Can we find a way to channel our collective energy towards productive climate action? Serious question.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tests_of_general_relativity#Pe...
For nearly 50 years, the "consensus" was "Newton's theory explains most things but doesn't explain this one big thing". The same could have been true of climate change, but there is no "precession of Mercury" for human-caused climate change. The data is clear, and the theory matches the data close enough to justify overwhelming consensus.
For instance we can disagree with and admonish others' views without silencing and removal through the 'disinformation' label. worrying times seeing this grow.
> Consensus is the currency of politics, not science
No. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_consensus
"Scientific consensus is the collective judgment, position, and opinion of the community of scientists in a particular field of study. Consensus generally implies agreement of the supermajority, though not necessarily unanimity.[1] Consensus is achieved through scholarly communication at conferences, the publication process, replication of reproducible results by others, scholarly debate,[2][3][4][5] and peer review."
> Before Einstein there was > 99% consensus that Newtonian gravity was ultimate description of gravitational force.
Again, no. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_relativity
"Albert Einstein published the theory of special relativity in 1905, building on many theoretical results and empirical findings obtained by Albert A. Michelson, Hendrik Lorentz, Henri Poincaré and others. Max Planck, Hermann Minkowski and others did subsequent work. Einstein developed general relativity between 1907 and 1915, with contributions by many others after 1915. The final form of general relativity was published in 1916."
...but it's worth noting two things. The first is that Newton himself found his own theory, to put it colloquially, fucking absurd, and said that anyone who believed him was out of their goddamn gourd. He was never able to experimentally show the cause of gravity.
Second: you have a strange basis for your criticism of science, given the scientific community tossed a centuries-old theory about motherfucking gravity out the window pretty rapidly once there was experimental evidence to back the new theory. To this day, we're still finding all sorts of new evidence that Einstein was right.
Just like we keep finding new ways to verify almost every aspect of human-induced climate change theory.
We have exhaustive amounts of evidence around CO2 levels, climate change, and sources of said CO2. The state of science is such that we've been able to figure out CO2 levels on earth going back 400 million years, with ice cores alone providing evidence of CO2 levels going back 800,000 years. Some of the evidence and experiments around CO2 date back more than a hundred years.
"We're causing the climate to change" was something that scientists theorized several centuries ago. Almost every day, as science keeps gets better, we keep confirming that centuries old core theory.
https://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_climate_change_scie...
Besides, modern climate scientists are hardly a mob. They collate data and come to their own conclusions. Those conclusions happen to agree, indicating a very strong position.
Except that he wasn't sentenced to prison, and what he was sentenced to was not for that reason, either in the superficial sense (that wasn't the nominal offense) or the substantive one (that wasn't the thing that changed between the time when the same people wanted him punished where he wasn't and when he was.)
That was not the scientific consensus.
> Just because the mob is with you doesn't make you right.
Science is not a mob. What basis do you have, other than the mob with you?
1. His heliocentric theory wasn't noticeably better at explaining or predicting the motion of heavenly bodies than the geocentric theories such as the Ptolemaic system. Galileo, like the Church, believed in a universe that was intelligently designed by an all-powerful God, and he believed that the laws of physics that such a God would choose would be mathematically beautiful and elegant. If observation did not match beautiful and elegant rules, then he would dismiss the observation as error or optical illusion.
The Church's position was that God made the universe, and if empirical evidence from observing the universe showed it clearly working in ways that didn't fit what the Church believed the Bible said the mistake must be in the Church's interpretation of the Bible.
2. He had a big ego.
His genius brought him fame. He became a celebrity who was regularly invited to hang out with the rich and famous and powerful. His big ego really loved that.
3. He was an asshole.
He was rude and intolerant to those he saw as rivals or that he saw as his inferiors (which due to his big ego included pretty much everyone).
4. He had a poor sense of politics.
He failed to realize that some of those rivals or inferiors that he was a major asshole towards either had way more political power than he did or they had good connections to such people, and that they could wield that power to make his life miserable if he kept being a major asshole to them.