If There's A Consensus, Does That Mean Something Is True?

"Scientists agree..." "There is a scientific consensus..."

Those of us involved in presenting the truth of creation science and refuting evolution hear phrases like this quite often. They are usually proffered as an excuse to avoid hearing or considering evidence against their erroneous worldviews and presuppositions. Doing so is an attempt to shut down discussion by appealing to authority or the majority. This is counterproductive not only to a discussion, but to scientific advancement.

Does this mean that they're right — and that they remain right?

True scientists will consider the facts, revising their theories. They even discard them (except for evolution, which must be protected at all costs). There are times when the consensus is wrong and the paradigm must be changed.

Whenever you hear “all scientists agree” or “we now know,” it’s no guarantee a finding won’t be disputed years later.  In the following examples, CEH focuses not so much on the content of the disputed subjects as the implications for philosophy of science.

The big warmup:  One very strong consensus among establishment scientists right now is that humans are causing global warming.  Science Daily reported a survey of 4,000 abstracts of scientific papers that indicated an “overwhelming consensus among scientists,” as high as 97%, “that recent warming is human-caused” (cf. fallacy of statistics).  Yet contrary data still arise from time to time.  For instance, New Scientist reported that re-analysis of global temperatures over the last decade shows that “Earth will warm more slowly over this century than we thought it would” – diminishing some of the frantic appeals for immediate action of past years.  Apparently the rate of heating hit a plateau even with more greenhouse gases being pumped into the atmosphere.  It doesn’t change the consensus; the new data are just “buying us a little more time to cut our greenhouse gas emissions and prevent dangerous climate change,” the article continued.  Likewise, PhysOrg spun the new data to mean that we still face a “Dire outlook despite global warming ‘pause’,” according to the study published in Nature Geoscience.  Skeptics of global warming like to point out that a few decades ago, the consensus warned that Earth was approaching a period of global cooling that would have drastic effects on human life.

What will the consensus believe about climate change in a few years or decades?  Nobody knows.  It’s instructive, though, to look at other examples of shifting consensus in science.

Yes, by all means, let's take a look at some further examples at "Scientists Can Agree on Things that Aren’t So".