SOLUTION OR RESOLUTION?

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• “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 …  “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. … 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.” 
• So said the late Michael Crichton during a guest lecture at CalTech. Crichton, a medical doctor, is best known for his brilliant science fiction including Jurassic Park, Westworld, and The Andromeda Strain. 
• There is claimed to be consensus about climate change among learned scientists. One headline from the Cornell Chronicle reads: “More than 99.9% of studies agree: Humans caused climate change.” 
• The article’s lead author claims “[Man-made climate change] is really case closed. There is nobody of significance in the scientific community who doubts human-caused climate change,” This headline has been parroted by NASA, the European Commission and the Guardian. (Those who dispute consensus include Prager U and Forbes.) 
• Consensus was used as a reason to stifle debate during the COVID crisis. Facebook and YouTube saw opposition to the government narrative as disinformation. Posts against consensus were censored and users were banned. 
• Pre-Musk Twitter had a policy concerning tweets about climate change: “Misleading advertisements on #Twitter that contradict the scientific consensus on #climatechange are prohibited, in line with its inappropriate content policy.” 
• The word pairing “scientific consensus” is a destructive science-stifling oxymoron. 

• Here’s some more wisdom from Michael Crichton’s guest lecture at CalTech.
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• Albert Einstein agrees. In 1931 the Nazi movement promoted the book One Hundred Authors Against Einstein. Einstein’s theories were labeled “Jewish physics” in Hitler’s Germany. Einstein’s response, paraphrased, was "If I were wrong, it would only take one." Einstein’s was right and the consensus of the 100 scientists was wrong. Indeed, Einstein’s famous equation being questioned, E = mc2, led to invention of the atomic bomb that ended WWII. 
• Claims of scientific consensus often lead to ultimate embarrassment. Take, for example, Professor Peter Gunter who, in 1970, defended an alarming claim with an appeal to consensus: 
• “Demographers agree almost unanimously on the following grim timetable…. By the year 2000, or conceivably sooner, South and Central America will exist under famine conditions…. By the year 2000, thirty years from now, the entire world, with the exception of Western Europe, North America, and Australia, will be in famine.” 

THESE SCIENTIFIC CONSENUS ALSO DEAD WRONG 

1966 OIL GONE IN TEN YEARS 

1967 DIRE FAMINE FORECAST BY 1975 

1968 OVERPOPULATION WILL SPREAD WORLDWIDE 

1969 EVERYONE WILL DISAPPEAR IN A CLOUD OF BLUE STEAM BY 1989 

1970 WORLD WIL USE UP ALL ITS NATURAL RESOURCES BY 2000 

URBAN CITIZENS WILL REQUIRE GAS MASKS BY 1985 

NITROGEN BUILD UP WILL MAKE ALL LAND UNUSABLE 

DECAYING POLUTION WILL KILL ALL THE FISH 

KILLER BEES  

ICE AGE BY 2000 

AMERICA SUBJECT TO WATER RATIONING BY1974 AND FOOD RATIONING 1980 

1971 NEW ICE AGE COMMING BY 2020 OR 2030 

1972 NEW ICE AGE BY 2070 

1972 OIL DEPLETED IN 20 YEARS 

1974 SPACE SATELLITES SHOW ICE AGE COMING FAST 

OZONE DEPLETION A GREAT PERIL TO LIFE 

1976 SCIENTIFIF CONSENUS PLANET COOLING FAMINE IMMINENT 

1977 DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY SAYS OIL WILL BE DEPLETED IN 90s 

1978 NO END IN SIGHT TO 30 YEAR COOLING TREND 

1980 ACID RAIN KILLS LIFE IN LAKES 

PEAK OIL IN 2000 

WHY NO STUPID RUMORS 1980-1988? THE BIG TURN? 

1988 REGIONAL DROUGHTS (that never happened) IN 1990 

TEMPERATURES WILL HIT RECORD HIGHS 

MALDIVE ISLANDS WILL BE UNDER WATER BY 2018 THEY ARE NOT! 

1989 RISING SEA LEVELS WILL OBLITERATE NATIONS IF NOTHING IS DONE BY 2000 

NEW YORK CITIES WEST SIDE HIGHWAY WILL BE UNDERWATER BY 2019 - NOT! 

7 YEAR GLIITCH IN STUPID PREDICTIONS OR ????? 

1996 PEAK OIL IN 2020 

2000 Y2K CHILDREN WON’T KNOW WHAT SNOW IS  

2002 FAMINE IN TEN YEARS IF WE DONT GIVE UP EATING FISH, MEAT AND DAIRY 

PEAK OIL IN 2010 

2004 BRITIAN WILL BE SIBERIA BY 2024 

2005 MANHATTAN UNDERWATER BY 2015 

2006 SUPER HURRICANES THREATEN EARTH - OH MY! 

2008 ARTIC TO BE ICE FREE BY 2018 

CLIMATE GENIUS AL GORE SAYS ARTIC TO BE ICE FREE BY 2013 - MUST HAVE MISSED THE MEMO 

2009 CLIMATE GENIOUS PRINCE CHARLES SAYSWE HAVE 96 MONTHS TO “SAVE THE WORLD” 

UK PRIME MINISTER SAYS 50 DAYS TO “SAVE PLANET FROM CATASTROPHE” 

CLIMATE GENIUS AL GORE MOVES ARTIC ICE-FREE DATE TO 2014 

2013 ICE-FREE DATE MOVED TO 2015 

2014 ONLY 500 DAYS BEFORE “CLIMATE CRISIS” AND 364 MORE DAYS UNTIL CHRISTMAS 

2019 GRETA, WE NEED YOU TO CONVINCE THEM ITS REALLY GOING TO HAPPEN THIS TIME. 

• There have been famines since Gunter’s 1970 prophesy. But they sporadically occur locally due to droughts, war and politics. Gunter’s appeal to global famine was wrong and he will be primary remembered in history for wrongness of his consensus-based claim.  Some who bucked scientific consensus have made world-changing discoveries. Here’s one: 
• For a long time the medical consensus was that peptic ulcers were caused by stress and lifestyle factors. Two Australian researchers, however, came to believe ulcers were caused by bacteria.  Barry J. Marshall and Robin Warren’s claim was so far outside of consensus that no scientist believed them. Besides, they were both from the University of Western Australia. Everyone knows that great medical breakthroughs come from Harvard, Johns Hopkins and Stanford — not a small insignificant institution isolated in the city of Perth on the western shore of Australia. Sure of their theory, Marshall underwent a gastric biopsy to demonstrate that he had no ulcer. Then he infected himself with bacteria and formed an ulcer. When he cured himself with antibiotics and bismuth salt regimens his theory was proved.  Marshall’s dedication to disproving consensus was, as they say, beyond the call. Marshall and Warren were awarded a Nobel Prize for ignoring scientific consensus and thinking and acting creatively outside the box. 
• Here’s another example from Albert Einstein: At the tender age of 26 he challenged consensus in his development of relativity.  For one thing, the speed of light was widely viewed to be relative to the speed of the observer with respect to the light source. Einstein abandoned this consensus. He theorized the speed of light was a constant independent of the relative speeds of the light source and the observer.  Further, it was known that sound waves need air or some other media to propagate. Scientists during the time of Einstein believed electromagnetic waves like light need some similar media in outer space and assumed something called aether was the propagation media. 
• Motivated by the Michelson-Morley experiment, Einstein correctly hypothesized there was no aether. Einstein bucked consensus and the theory of relativity was born.  I don’t pretend to know the right answer to many of today’s scientific debates. I do know that “if it’s consensus, it isn’t science.” Be it global warming or COVID, let the debate continue until the evidence is overwhelming.

• Robert J. Marks Ph.D. is Distinguished Professor at Baylor University and Senior Fellow and Director of the Bradley Center for Natural & Artificial Intelligence. He is author of "Non-Computable You: What You Do That Artificial Intelligence Never Will Never Do," and "Neural Smithing." Marks is former Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks.  

• BTW: Aether was a Greek god.  The personification of the bright upper sky.