Science is not a body of knowledge. There is no such thing as a "scientific consensus". Science is a process. Science, also known as the exclusion process, is the process wherein doubt is removed by testing. As contingent beings, we have only contingent knowledge. Knowledge, to a contingent being, is what they are left to believe. We approach certainty through the exclusion process. To scientists, it not so much that ideas are ever proved as it is that all of the other ideas considered have been disproved. What remains is what scientists are left to believe. Then, that's tested, and so on, and so on. Truth is an implication. It is what it is. Proof is an inference. Proof is the product of the exclusion process. Ideas are only proof to the extent that they have been tested.
Scientists don't think in terms of facts. They think in terms of theories. They think in terms of theories and not facts because Scientists never consider a theory to be 'complete.' For example, evolution is one of the most widely accepted ideas in science and it's still called a theory because scientists never consider a theory to be complete and with the advent of molecular biology the 'theory,' of evolution did indeed change. Molecular Biology explained the mechanism by which organisms can change, mutations resulting in changes in DNA, like many single nucleotide polymorphisms accumulating over many generations. With the advent of horizontal gene transfer in 2005 evolution changed again. Horizontal gene transfer showed how an organism can acquire an entirely functional gene hundreds to thousands of nucleotides long in a single generation.
You know when you go to university to study a discipline as an undergraduate? You have to learn about the discipline. You actually learn a body of knowledge. Then when you do your postgraduate work you can do research which adds so the body of knowledge. That body of knowledge is accepted by consensus. But that doesnt mean its accepted uncritically. The whole point of graduate research is to try and find additional knowledge or to improve existing knowledge. Consensus isnt about protecting knowledge. If it was then we would still be labouring under the concepts of Newtonian physics (note, I am aware that not all Newtonian ideas have been chucked out). Thomas Kuhn famously explored this in his book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Kuhn Science is definitely a process, or at least a method. Knowledge is part of the deal but knowledge comes in various forms.
True scientists think in terms of the scientific method by which theories are put forth and tested against the real world. If in any case the theory does not apply as determined by real world testing the theory is invalid.
I've never understood the conspiracy theories that say scientists just follow the herd and don't question theories. Nothing would catapult a scientist's career faster than proving that a theory was wrong. Nobel prizes are usually in order when that happens.
Random mutations cannot increase the complexity of an organism. All observed mutations decrease complexity. That's why macro-evolution is still a theory. We have never observed anything become randomly more complex, not once, ever.
One can say that science cannot prove a thing to be; it can only prove a thing not to be. What remains is what we are LEFT TO BELIEVE.
I was always taught a thing becomes a fact when a consensus of scientists agree on it at any given time.
Complexity is the scope, scale and function of interconnected parts. Complexity is measured by measuring the scope, scale and function of interconnected parts.
But science can say that "this is the most likely explanation" or "this model most closely approximates our observations". Just because scientists are not 100% sure doesn't mean that they are wrong. Think of it1 like how saying that the Earth is a perfect sphere, while wrong, is still more right than saying the Earth is flat.
This is accurate and makes great sense except for this: There is no such thing as a "scientific consensus. Scientific consensus is actually the whole reason hypothesis becomes theory and IS scientific method. There is a reason Gravity is now theory and should science gain understanding of it more completely the consensus will push it into law.
The answer is complex E equals mc squared is simple, yet complex Pi is simple yet complex A glass of water is simple yet complex Dark matter seems complex, yet may be simple A fractal image seems complex, but emerges from simple equations Ultimately, complexity is a subjective descriptor... like hot
Presumably there is a scientific consensus on this assertion In any case... life itself defies this claim At some point there was dog one... with limited complexity Now there are billions of dogs These dogs are not clones of dog one, nor are they clones of each other Therefore you have gone from simple (one or few dogs). To billions of DIFFERENT dogs (increased complexity)
The various breeds of dog are an example of extinction not evolution. A toy dog is the product of excising genes from a canine not adding them. The same thing explains Darwin's finches. A toy breed has a much narrower gene pool than does a mutt or a wolf. Your example is an excellent illustration of my premise. Thank you. - - - Updated - - - The meanings of the words I'm using.
100% of scientists are not wrong 100% of the time, but, historically, it's close. The vast majority of the best and the brightest that have ever devoted their lives to the science of their day wasted their lives on mumbo jumbo. In fact, so few are those who were correct, we can literally know their names. The same is true today. We are no different in that regard. It is as true to say today, as it has ever been, that we don't know almost everything.
Gravity is testable. Their is a consensus in the results of those tests. There is no theoretical gravitational consensus. I will further concede that 1+1=2 has been even better tested and those test results have an even higher degree of consensus. My point is this, an idea is only proof to the extent it has been tested. Macro-evolution cannot even be tested because there known mechanism by which matter can spontaneously increase in complexity, not by mutation, not even in an open system. Your pint is well taken. I tend to agree, or disagree with ideas rather than people. Therefore, I am inclined to see consensus among data rather than people.
The testability of mathematics makes mathematics the closest thing we have to proof positive. The closest thing we have to proof positive is experimental repeatability.
NO! A 'law' is hypothesis, not a theory. The difference between a theory and a hypothesis is that a hypothesis can be tested. Indeed, a 'law' is a hypothesis that has been tested to the extent that is considered a 'law'.
