Sunday 29 July 2012

A Sunday Quote

"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."
- Michael Crichton

1 comment:

  1. Did you not spot the self contradiction in this?

    "Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet because you're being had."


    "results that are verifiable"

    "What is relevant is reproducible results"


    So If lots of scientists agree it is a conspiracy but science is about scientists agreeing and reproducing results.

    Brilliant!

    ReplyDelete

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...