While I find most of your postings thoughtful and carefully expressed, this is nonsense, and I'm certain you know it.
Science is not a matter of public opinion, even when politicians promote their own favorite hypotheses (i.e., Gore-bull warming).
It is a matter of testing & falsifying or confirming hypotheses.
As such, it requires the same level of honesty you yourself exercise every day when you approach an intersection: is that traffic light red or green?
Thus "consensus" is the result, not the cause of, the truth of the matter.
If you try to make “science” objective, that gets rejected. It appears that it’s being unilaterally declared to be simply a “matter of opinion” so that it can be criticized for being too subjective.
I find some contestable points in the above statements, dear BroJoeK.
(1) You maintain that science is not a matter of public opinion, yet seemingly remain quite blind and strangely mute about the fact that science is being used to shape public opinion and you yourself proffer a notorious example of this ghastly abuse of science: Gore-bull warming. Are you trying to refute yourself? Or are you just too lazy to connect the logical dots?
(2) I dont need honesty to make a decision about whether a traffic light is green or red. I just need eyesight and experience to discriminate visual inputs, analyze and decide what they mean, and respond accordingly, as generally prescribed by the laws and regulations pertaining to public safety. This is virtually a mechanistic, almost totally unconscious process by now. It is unclear to me how a term from the moral universe honesty applies to this seemingly mainly empirical situation, or could apply, without trivializing the moral universe.
(3) You seem to suggest that the truth of the matter is the result of consensus. [Quoting you directly, Thus consensus is the result, not the cause of, the truth of the matter.] That strangely sounds like a political statement to me: In what way would what you describe here be different from a public opinion poll? And how is science to advance if it is faced with/constrained by such a monumentally impoverished mentality?
Majority opinion may have to suffice when it comes to deciding political questions. But I conceive that, if questions in science are to be asked and answered in this way, we will finally hear the death knell of science itself.
For consensus kills curiosity. Or rather makes curiosity superfluous, once the consensus community makes its pronouncements known and forbids all questions that rise outside its putative domain .
Thus the destruction of one of the most glorious achievements in the history of mankind.
Do I personally believe that would ever happen?
NO!!! I have too much confidence in science even though its tires might need a little kicking right now .
Must leave off for now. Hubby wants to go shopping. Ugh. Will get back soon.
Thanks so much for writing, BJK!