Jul 4, 2025 05:54 PM
(This post was last modified: Jul 4, 2025 06:53 PM by C C.)
https://www.irishtimes.com/science/2025/...l-concept/
INTRO (William Reville): The term scientific consensus – as in “there is a scientific consensus on climate change“ – is often used to characterise a matter considered to be scientifically settled.
But the concept of consensus is poorly suited to science, where conclusions must always remain provisional and revisable in the light of new evidence.
The concept of “convergence” better describes the nature of the scientific enterprise. Convergence means we can begin to have confidence that science is accurately/truly describing a phenomenon when the evidence from many and diverse approaches all point to the same explanation. The relative merits of the concepts of consensus and convergence were discussed recently in a recent editorial in Science, and elaborated by Chuck Dinerstein in The American Council for Science and Health.
The value of the convergence concept is illustrated by the history of the MMR vaccine and the claims that this vaccine causes autism. There is a huge amount of evidence from very many lines of investigation that MMR vaccines do not cause autism – in other words, there is extremely strong scientific convergence pointing to this conclusion.
The term scientific consensus – as in “there is a scientific consensus on climate change“ – is often used to characterise a matter considered to be scientifically settled.
But the concept of consensus is poorly suited to science, where conclusions must always remain provisional and revisable in the light of new evidence.
The concept of “convergence” better describes the nature of the scientific enterprise. Convergence means we can begin to have confidence that science is accurately/truly describing a phenomenon when the evidence from many and diverse approaches all point to the same explanation. The relative merits of the concepts of consensus and convergence were discussed recently in a recent editorial in Science, and elaborated by Chuck Dinerstein in The American Council for Science and Health.
The value of the convergence concept is illustrated by the history of the MMR vaccine and the claims that this vaccine causes autism. There is a huge amount of evidence from very many lines of investigation that MMR vaccines do not cause autism – in other words, there is extremely strong scientific convergence pointing to this conclusion.
A single contrary indication would not destroy the existing convergence of evidence, which will remain even if a single or a few exceptions come to light. If exceptions do emerge, the onus will be on proponents of the MMR/autism link to explain why scientific convergence so overwhelmingly indicates the opposite conclusion... (MORE - details)
INTRO (William Reville): The term scientific consensus – as in “there is a scientific consensus on climate change“ – is often used to characterise a matter considered to be scientifically settled.
But the concept of consensus is poorly suited to science, where conclusions must always remain provisional and revisable in the light of new evidence.
The concept of “convergence” better describes the nature of the scientific enterprise. Convergence means we can begin to have confidence that science is accurately/truly describing a phenomenon when the evidence from many and diverse approaches all point to the same explanation. The relative merits of the concepts of consensus and convergence were discussed recently in a recent editorial in Science, and elaborated by Chuck Dinerstein in The American Council for Science and Health.
The value of the convergence concept is illustrated by the history of the MMR vaccine and the claims that this vaccine causes autism. There is a huge amount of evidence from very many lines of investigation that MMR vaccines do not cause autism – in other words, there is extremely strong scientific convergence pointing to this conclusion.
The term scientific consensus – as in “there is a scientific consensus on climate change“ – is often used to characterise a matter considered to be scientifically settled.
But the concept of consensus is poorly suited to science, where conclusions must always remain provisional and revisable in the light of new evidence.
The concept of “convergence” better describes the nature of the scientific enterprise. Convergence means we can begin to have confidence that science is accurately/truly describing a phenomenon when the evidence from many and diverse approaches all point to the same explanation. The relative merits of the concepts of consensus and convergence were discussed recently in a recent editorial in Science, and elaborated by Chuck Dinerstein in The American Council for Science and Health.
The value of the convergence concept is illustrated by the history of the MMR vaccine and the claims that this vaccine causes autism. There is a huge amount of evidence from very many lines of investigation that MMR vaccines do not cause autism – in other words, there is extremely strong scientific convergence pointing to this conclusion.
A single contrary indication would not destroy the existing convergence of evidence, which will remain even if a single or a few exceptions come to light. If exceptions do emerge, the onus will be on proponents of the MMR/autism link to explain why scientific convergence so overwhelmingly indicates the opposite conclusion... (MORE - details)
