I Have a Few Questions for Neil deGrasse Tyson Regarding Scientific Consensus
https://twitter.com/TheChiefNerd/status/1644107524797345793?s=20
(Sorry, really wish I could embed the tweet with the video of Neil and Del Bigtree talking, but here we are in the trenches of a social media war which is killing the one thing the Internet is supposed to do: connect everything. Anyway, it’s worth clicking through for context.)
Okay, here we go:
1. Neil, you say you do not care about individual scientists, only in “scientific consensus”. Yet, in Cosmos, did you not detail many instances of individual scientists heroically challenging the consensus view of their time? Would you have sided with the scientific consensus of the time against Copernicus? Galileo? Newton? Darwin? Einstein? Would you have sided with geocentrism, a flat earth, space filled with ether, or medical leeching, since, in their time, those were the prevailing consensus views? Would you have opposed evolution by natural selection, or general relativity, since those represented challenges to the consensus views of their time?
2. You’ve described how Carl Sagan mentored you as a young man and shaped who you were to become as a person. Are you aware of Sagan’s thoughts on the Velikovsky Affair (when the scientific community became rankled and threatened by a wild theorist)? Carl said:
“The worst aspect of the Velikovsky affair is not that many of his idea were wrong or silly or in gross contradiction to the facts. Rather, the worst aspect is that some scientists attempted to suppress Velikovsky’s ideas. The suppression of uncomfortable ideas may be common in religion or in politics, but it is not the path to knowledge, and there is no place for it in the endeavor of science.”
—Carl Sagan, Broca’s Brain (emphasis mine)
Do you agree with your mentor on this, Neil?
3. What is the status of a scientist who is in possession of knowledge or evidence which, if widely known, would counter or upset the prevailing consensus view? Should they be suppressed or silenced? Should they self-censor for fear of their career, livelihood or repercussions to their family? How would the history of scientific thought be different if that were true? What might we still believe? Do you realize that every advancement we experience as a species, whether scientific, technological, moral or legal, represents a challenge to an earlier consensus?
4. Is it possible for a group of humans, even very educated humans, to be in error? Can we collectively believe, for example, that the Earth is flat? Or that the entirety of the heavens rotates around a central Earth? Or that space is made of ether? Are humans, even scientists, prone to faulty reasoning, ignoring evidence, wishing, prejudice, close-mindedness, territoriality, financial corruption, jealousy, professional backstabbing, biases, ideological blind spots, or being just plain mistaken? Shouldn’t these humans, therefore, even though they possess scientific credentials, be challengeable?
5. When there are forces guiding consensus that have nothing to do with truth, is it still “science”? Is it possible for scientific institutions, research facilities, regulatory bodies, academic journals, or schools to be captured by interests other than the pursuit of truth (e.g., financial gain, prestige, political ideology, state pressure, funding threats, etc.)? Are you aware of studies paid for by cigarette manufacturers, for example, which “prove” the harmlessness of smoking? Do you see these influences as antithetical to the pursuit of true science? Should we question the scientific findings of these bodies when we suspect them of being captured by bad actors or nefarious influences, or must we simply accept their findings because they occur under the guise of “science”?
6. Does science involve debate, disagreement, dissent? Isn’t science supposed to encourage dissent, rather than discourage it? Can science be honestly said to be taking place where there is an atmosphere of silencing or punishment for anyone who disagrees? How can science “self-correct” as Carl Sagan puts it, if everyone must agree with what was said before them?
“Reasoned criticism of a prevailing belief is a service to the proponents of that belief; if they are incapable of defending it, they are well advised to abandon it. This self-questioning and error-correcting aspect of the scientific method is its most striking property… the idea of science as a method rather than as a body of knowledge is not widely appreciated outside of science, or indeed in some corridors inside of science.”
—Carl Sagan, Broca’s Brain, emphasis mine
7. Are certain scientific subjects taboo or forbidden to challenge? If so, which ones? And on whose authority? Don’t we already have a name for immutable knowledge handed down from on high by an authority? (Religion). Isn’t challengeability why we regard scientific knowledge claims as superior to say, knowledge by revelation? If it is forbidden to challenge certain scientific views then what is the point of peer review? What is the point of scientific conferences or debates (many of which I have seen you take part in)? Are you aware of the Carl Sagan quote which says:
“Science has no sacred truths; all assumptions must be critically examined; arguments from authority are worthless.” (Cosmos)
Or:
“Science is self-correcting. The most fundamental axioms and conclusions may be challenged. The prevailing hypotheses must survive confrontation with observation. Appeals to authority are impermissible.” (Broca’s Brain)
Are you aware of the following Richard Feynman quotes?
“Scientific knowledge is a body of statements of varying degrees of certainty — some most unsure, some nearly sure, none absolutely certain.“
—Richard Feynman
And:
“I would rather have questions that can’t be answered than answers that can’t be questioned.”
—Richard Feynman
And:
“Don’t pay attention to authorities, think for yourself.”
—Richard Feynman
Did Richard Feynman, or Carl Sagan, misunderstand something about science, in your view?
8. Does critical thinking consist of simply agreeing with whatever the majority says is true? Or does it involve challenging prevailing views and seeing whether something stands up to the light of one’s own reason? Should we train young scientists to simply go along with whatever the herd thinks, or should we teach them to think for themselves?
9. Have you, Neil, ever disagreed with a majority or consensus view on anything? Have you disagreed with anyone, whether majority or not? Did you enjoy and exercise the right of voicing your disagreement with that view? Did the person you disagreed with have the right to silence you, simply because they thought you were wrong?
10. Have you, Neil, ever been wrong about anything and modified an earlier position or changed your mind completely? Do other people besides you also deserve that right? Or must they always go along with whatever an authority, or a majority, says?
11. Is the truth whatever we collectively decide it is? Is truth determined by a committee? By a majority vote? Are majorities ever wrong? (e.g., the majority of the world once believed in, and profited from, human slave trade). Don’t some majorities need to be challenged by freethinking dissenters? Should the force of law be used to silence these dissenters? Do you know that Argumentum ad populum is an informal logical fallacy in nearly every logic textbook ever published? If a majority of Americans wanted to reinstate slavery, and it passed through the executive and legislative branches, presumably you would agree to that, since it was a “consensus”?
12. Are minority opinions always wrong? Does a minority view ever get to be heard or must it be silenced? If five out of nine Supreme Court Justices vote to overturn the 1st amendment, or the 13th, or the 15th, are they automatically correct, and the remaining four wrong? When does a majority become a “consensus”? 6-3? 7-2? 8-1? If nine out of nine Justices agreed and voted for something that you considered to be morally reprehensible and illegal, would you be wrong to protest them? Should you be silenced or prevented from doing so, since they achieved a consensus?
13. Does scientific policy, when we discover it to be wrong, need to have the ability to course-correct? Or should we remain locked into our initial course of action, regardless of outcomes, even if we subsequently discover our initial course to be wrong, or poorly reasoned, or based on bad information, or bad actors, or we discover that it leads to enormous destruction and loss of human life? Do scientists need to have the ability to have an ongoing discussion, and debate, about policy? Does the refusal to back down from error, or to accept challenges to authority, help or harm the cause of science? Have you seen the series Chernobyl?
14. Should government officials dictate what “acceptable science” is to the scientists? Should government prevent life-saving procedures from being performed, or life-saving products from being available? Should it use law enforcement agencies to dictate what scientists can and cannot say? Should it use military and intelligence agencies to bar scientific discussion from taking place over social media? If those agencies are captured by nefarious forces, might that be bad for science, and more broadly for the public who are then subject to those forces’ decisions? Are you aware that there were Nazi scientists who believed they had full scientific justification for carrying out the atrocities they did? If science is always righteous why do we have such a concept as “research ethics”? Why did we draft the Nuremburg Code? Is it possible that a highly corrupted system might use “Follow the Science” as a tool of manipulation, to get people to go along with, or to justify, something monstrously immoral and incorrect?
What do you think? Does anyone have any more questions for Neil that I might have missed?
After reading the comments to Del’s interview with NDT, I couldn’t bring myself to watch the interview. This confirms my belief that my brothers will NEVER awaken from their slumber. They are both amateur astronomers. It’s confounding. They would never discuss the info my sister and I tried to send them. And if they ever did, they would just parrot what this pathetic so called scientist said.
The long slow dissolution of science into intellectualized, irrational pudding - along with our brains. Good essay.