Science Requires Skepticism, Not Consensus

 

This letter to the editor of WSJ appeared March 13th, 2023. It is obviously relevant to our current global warming hysteria, but also to what I have been writing about psychiatry

Science Requires Skepticism, Not Consensus

It is a methodology for attaining the best truth about nature that we can muster at any point in time.

The term “science” has been misappropriated, misunderstood and misused often in our discourse, across many issues. It has been misused not only by ideologues, politicians, journalists and interested parties, but also by scientists themselves. Tim Trevan points out the latter admirably in his op-ed “Why Scientists Got the Covid Lab Leak Wrong” (March 7).

Science isn’t a monolith of truth about nature. It is a methodology for attaining the best truth about nature that we can muster at any point in time with facts, observations and experimentation. The prevailing theory on any scientific subject is only as good as all the tests and observations it can withstand. One strong observation or one well-designed experiment with results antithetical to a theory will cast doubt on its universal application, requiring retesting and maybe the theory’s revision or rejection.

Skepticism, both of one’s own work and that of others, is the fundament of scientific methodology. Remember Galen’s humors, geocentricism and even Einstein’s correction to Newton’s laws of motion? Over many centuries, scientists developed a consensus that each of these theories were the final word—settled science—only to see that consensus dashed by the skeptical methodology of scientific pursuit.

Consensus plays no part in the logic of scientific discovery. It isn’t part of the methodology. There is no such thing as settled science.

James Gottschalk