True, as any scientist will tell you. But in science, a consensus does not emerge until the proof is already established.
Another red herring. In science, scientists are legitimately the authorities. It doesn’t make them infallible, but it does mean they know what they’re talking about better than anyone outside the field in question.
One only has to look at history to see that this is false. Galileo, Continental Drift, etc.
Not true again. Lord Kelvin comes to mind.
True indeed. 
My field is young enough that this is just beginning to happen. I’m working on a paper where one of the references is from 1958, which is damn ancient.
What’s this proof you’re talking about?
In mathematics, there might be a consensus on solved conjectures, like P = NP, but once a proof exists, you either find a flaw or accept it. Since there are no proofs in science, there will always be opinion and interpretation. There’s plenty of evidence, but it can be interpreted in varying ways. But when a vast majority agrees on an interpretation, that means something.
You noticed I included people ahead of their time in my process.
In most cases, the early work gets ignored. In some, it is considered as interesting, but undemonstrated. If someone really pushes, they can suffer.
I think other doctors could have reproduced Semmelweis’ work, though medicine was not done quite as scientifically as it is today. IIRC, the technology didn’t exist to demonstrate Wegener was correct until quite late. Not everyone with an unaccepted theory turns out to be right.
Consider Big Bang vs Steady State. There was no consensus until Penzias and Wilson got lucky. Hoyle wasn’t a crackpot for pushing Steady State in the '50s but only after there was ample evidence to build a consensus. There was a guy who suffered also, but he was wrong.
This is a great example of unanimity being built through the old guard dying, as Cervaise mentioned.
Again, it’s hardly obvious that Semmelweis’s opinions as such were responsible for screwing up his career. While it appears that one temporary job wasn’t renewed in March 1849 because his boss took exception to him - this is one of the details where the cited Wikipedia entry is misleading; he probably wasn’t “fired” - he probably still had substantial support amongst some of his Vienniese colleagues at this stage.
Sherwin Nuland (in The Doctors’ Plague, Norton, 2003) plausibly makes the case that where his career goes off the rails is when he impulsively runs off to Budapest.
I think the final proof of science and its benefit, in purely humanistic terms, is contribution to survival and understanding. People warn towards survial of themselves and their progeny. Smarter people than me are advocating and trying to make amends for the greater good. What consensus is that? There is the party of Death and the party of Life in modern America. Choose your poison.
Which is which?
The NIH has a Consensus Development Program whose purpose is to look at complex medical issues and bring Researchers, Advocates, Industry and academics together and issue a report on the current consensus of opinion on the issue:
The purpose of a CDP conference is to evaluate the available scientific information on a biomedical issue and develop a statement that advances understanding of the issue under consideration and will be useful to health professionals and the public
Recent topics covered include :
Multivitamins, Cesareans and Menopause
[THIS IS A STRAWMAN MADEUP EXAMPLE]
Maybe say there is some research that shots of Vitamin B45 make rats with lung cancer live 75% longer, but that every internet site is touting massive injections of it to fight AIDS.
The consensus statement by NIH would provide Doctors or Patients, most of whom truly have no time or expertise to wade through what is true or not true, and allow them to take more informed treatment paths than they would on their own with no guidance.
Further it allows Researchers with similar interests to pow-wow and see where they are in terms of agreement.
It helps $$ granters decide where money should be spent – given that 25 of the top30 researchers on earth agree that there may be some value to looking further into the B45 Lung Cancer connection - while 22 of 30 (along with 25 physicians and 10 research papers) find little evidence to support the hypothesis that it does anything for AIDS … you need to ask where the money should go if you can only fund 1 grant.
Interesting. I went to what sounds like a similar conference, sponsored by NSF, attempting to build consensus on what types of things should be funded. It involved top researchers, both in industry and academia, and the NSF person, who was very good, did use the results.
This kind of thing is very useful for everyone.
Oh, Fiveyearlurker, that simply isn’t true!
When a respectable news organization like, oh, say Foxnews needs to find an expert in a field for solid scientific reporting they don’t just pick out any random asshole talking head because they run in the same circles or because the producer working on a story on Bird Flu used that same guy last month for a report on shark attacks on eight-year olds.
No, the process is much more advanced than that.
First, they develop a list of ten keywords relating to the story and feed that list into a large and complicated computer like this one:
http://www.hilliard.com/images/mainframe_lg.jpg
That computer cross-references the research areas of a comprehensive list of every PhD candidate, post-doc, and investigator across the nation and populates a list of every investigator that is published or well-versed in three out of ten of the given keywords.
From that list, an advanced and truly random random number generator spits out a list with a mailing address and phone-number for five scientists in a ranked order from most to least senior. The producer of the news-program then diligently goes down that list trying to contact each expert to get them to come on the show.
And that’s how you get guys like this for intellectually honest and fair discussions of tricky scientific concepts:
http://www.foxnews.com/video2/launchPage.html?040107/040107_wl_adams&Fact or Fiction?&Weekend_Live&Comic book creator turns science on its head&Science&-1&Fact or Fiction?&Video Launch Page&News’
So, as you can see, given that every member of the scientific community at any given rank of seniority has an equal chance of appearing on Foxnews, there really isn’t any valid basis for your complaint that not all scientists among “scientists” have an equal chance to be heard.
Do try a little harder next time before you go off making these half-cocked accusations about how the American media would dare to distort science reporting, 'mkay?
That’s pretty funny.
My wife sometimes interviews scientists (she’s a biologist, now writing) and she often gets the names from the press offices of universities. Other times, award winners, authors, chairs of conferences, or authors of featured papers in Science get on lists. (I’ve been on the lists for trade rags, myself.)
As for post docs and new PhDs not getting heard - who do you think does the actual work? They may not make it onto TV, but they will get their papers published, assuming they are good, and that is how the real consensus gets built. My field doesn’t have a lot of postdocs, but the new PhDs who are good publish twice as much as old farts like me, who spend our time running conferences and stuff.