Michael Crichton on consensus science

I want to pause here and talk about this notion of consensus, and the rise of what has been called consensus science.  I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks.  Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled.  Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you're being had. 

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.

~ Michael Crichton

Robert Murphy on climate change models

A few vocal scientists and many activists are pressuring political officials and the public to support massive tax hikes and new regulations in order to mitigate the threat of catastrophic climate change. Yet one of the crucial planks in their argument—namely, that we can trust the alarming computer simulations of global warming—rely on models that have clearly been overpredicting global temperature. The fact that the defenders of the orthodoxy won’t even acknowledge their own damning charts should give any honest citizen pause.

~ Robert Murphy, "Should We Trust the Climate Change Models? Part 1 of 3," Institute for Energy Research, December 20, 2019