On 12/8/03 9:57 AM, "Poor, Edmund W" Edmund.W.Poor@abc.com wrote:

12/08/03 9:55 AM The Cunctator [mailto:cunctator@kband.com] wrote:

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On 12/8/03 9:50 AM, "Poor, Edmund W" Edmund.W.Poor@abc.com wrote:

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When people say "most scientists believe X" I daresay what they really

mean is:

• X is true, so let's stop arguing about it

You're wrong.

So, let's not bother reading the rest of my post or discussing it?

Hm, you seem to be proving my point.

Is this another one of your "classical rhetoric" devil's advocate techniques? ;-)

No, it's not, and I resent the facetious insinuation.

To expand on "You're wrong": When you assert that those who you consider the opposition are acting in bad faith, a mutually respectful conversation is impossible. So I ask to stop making such implications.

This is why I said you're wrong: When people say "most scientists believe X" what they mean is "most scientists believe X".

Moreover, the standard understanding of what is the scientific consensus *is not* "most scientists believe X". It's "what hypotheses explain the collected evidence, using the scientific method." Since the standard for peer-reviewed scientific journals is to only publish hypotheses which explain the collected evidence, using the scientific method, one can safely say that the scientific consensus is by and large represented by what is published in peer-reviewed scientific journals.

And *there is* a close correspondence between what most scientists (at least in a particular field) believe and what is published in the journals (and what hypotheses explain the collected evidence).

So there is a close correspondence between "most scientists believe in X" and "scientific consensus". But they are not the same thing.

By way of example:

Most scientists believe that the Earth rotates around the Sun.

The scientific consensus is that the Earth rotates around the Sun.

The scientific consensus that the Earth rotates around the Sun is not because scientists believe it to be so.

The scientific consensus that the Earth rotates around the Sun is not intended to end investigation or discussion of what that means. (For example, the advent of relavistic physics significantly redefined our understanding of reference frames, giving us a better tools to explicitly describe how it is that it's a natural assumption for someone standing on Earth that the Sun rotates around the Earth.)

It is because the hypothesis that the Earth rotates around the Sun is a much better explanation for the observed data than alternative hypotheses.

--tc.