Physicist Richard Feynman:
“I would rather have questions that can’t be answered
than answers that can’t be questioned¹.” 

Is the average person able to make up their own mind?

In recent years, the government and “experts” have been telling the public what they need to know and do to protect their health; in many cases, demanding or mandating acquiescence, even without informed consent. Rather than conducting research and making personal decisions about critical health matters, the public has been exhorted to relinquish their rights and convictions to individuals who are supposed to be much more knowledgeable than they, especially because conducting research takes time and expertise.

“Experts” claim that most people can’t understand the scientific literature anyway, so they really do have to rely on them. However, there is a growing, vocal group of people conducting their own in-depth research and making their own informed decisions, even ones that are contrary to the mainstream narrative or scientific consensus. However, this is such a scary proposition that astrophysicist Ethan Siegel, in a Forbes article, had to chastise the public: “You Must Not ‘Do Your Own Research’ When It Comes To Science.” Siegel contends that laypeople cannot possibly understand science since it is not their field of expertise and they are more likely than not to make dangerous, even life-threatening errors. Accordingly:

When laypersons espouse opinions on those matters, it’s immediately clear to us where the gaps in their understanding are and where they’ve misled themselves in their reasoning. When they take up the arguments of a contrarian scientist, we recognize what they’re overlooking, misinterpreting, or omitting. Unless we start valuing the actual expertise that legitimate experts have spent lifetimes developing, “doing our own research” could lead to immeasurable, unnecessary suffering.

We want consensus, he says.

We think that, just by applying our brainpower and our critical reasoning skills, we can discern whose expert opinions are trustworthy and responsible. We think that we can see through who’s a charlatan and a fraud, and we can tell what’s safe and effective from what’s dangerous and ineffective.

Except, for almost all of us, we can’t. Even those of us with excellent critical thinking skills and lots of experience trying to dig up the truth behind a variety of claims are lacking one important asset: the scientific expertise necessary to understand any finds or claims in the context of the full state of knowledge of your field. It’s part of why scientific consensus is so remarkably valuable: it only exists when the overwhelming majority of qualified professionals all hold the same consistent professional opinion. It truly is one of the most important and valuable types of expertise that humanity has ever developed².

A professional opinion is still an opinion, not scientific proof. Furthermore, our own lived experience may also tell us otherwise. Not everything written in the scientific literature is technical or hard to understand, and many people educate themselves in the science and terminology in order to make sense of what they are seeing. If you accept that you are not qualified to question the experts, you have handed decisions about your own and your family’s health to a process you are no longer permitted to examine.

But let’s step back and consider the validity of scientific consensus. Can it be that the contrarian scientist is always wrong and that all we need to know is what most scientists agree to? Is that science? If it is, then how does science progress? Should we have stopped thinking and experimenting in the Stone Age?

Science demands that all sides be heard

The scientific process is one of testing hypotheses and refining judgments. Science is never served by stifling the voice of an opposing viewpoint.

An article about climate change offers the viewpoints of both those who agree with the mainstream narrative and those who don’t. This is why:

Simply stated, we maintain that appeals to authority and scurrilous ad hominem attacks are no substitute for rational argument …

Our position is simple. It is the classical liberal one. … “I disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” Why should I defend someone else’s freedom to say what I myself believe to be wrong? Because the truth is one thing, my knowledge of it is something else. And because this means that the essence of rational inquiry is intellectual humility. And also because the slow and painful advance towards truth is best served by the open and honest airing of disagreement. For all of these reasons, we deplore all attempts to use political muscle to shut down academic debate.³.

Consensus is a political construct, not a scientific one

Here is science fiction novelist Michael Crichton’s view on science and consensus:

Let’s be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus. There is no such thing as consensus science. If it’s consensus, it isn’t science. If it’s science, it isn’t consensus. Period.

…

… Finally, I would remind you to notice where the claim of consensus is invoked. Consensus is invoked only in situations where the science is not solid enough …

As far as lone scientists, the contrarian ones, can be correct, even if it takes more than a hundred years to acknowledge it. He brings us several examples:

In 1795, Alexander Gordon of Aberdeen suggested that the fevers were infectious processes, and he was able to cure them. The consensus said no.

In 1843, Oliver Wendell Holmes claimed puerperal fever was contagious, and presented compelling evidence. The consensus said no.

In 1849, Semmelweiss demonstrated that sanitary techniques virtually eliminated puerperal fever in hospitals under his management. The consensus said he was a Jew, ignored him, and dismissed him from his post.

In the early 19oos, Joseph Goldberger determined that pellagra was due to diet [a deficiency of Vitamin D3 or Niacin], not germs. Yet, it was not until the 1920s that his findings were finally accepted⁴

It wasn’t until 2007 that a plausible function of the appendix was proposed; until then, it was thought to serve no purpose.⁵

British economist John Kay says this about science and consensus:

… Consensus is a political concept, not a scientific one.

Consensus finds a way through conflicting opinions and interests. Consensus is achieved when the outcome of discussion leaves everyone feeling they have been given enough of what they want. The processes of proper science could hardly be more different. The accomplished politician is a negotiator, a conciliator, finding agreement where none seemed to exist. The accomplished scientist is an original, an extremist, disrupting established patterns of thought. Good science involves perpetual, open debate, in which every objection is aired and dissents are sharpened and clarified, not smoothed over.

Often the argument will continue for ever, and should, because the objective of science is not agreement on a course of action, but the pursuit of truth. Occasionally that pursuit seems to have been successful and the matter is resolved, not by consensus, but by the exhaustion of opposition⁶.

Winners and Losers

If consensus is a political construct and has no place in science, why are we being told otherwise? Who gains and who loses when scientists deny the validity of divergent conclusions?

These are not abstract questions. Whenever science is used to influence public policy, medical practice, and personal health decisions, it is worth asking what is claimed to be the scientific consensus and what evidence supports it.