Michael Crichton Explains Why There Is No Such Thing As Consensus Science American Enterprise Institute - AEI

Michael Crichton explains why there is ‘no such thing as
consensus science’
CARPE DIEM
Mark J. Perry
 @Mark_J_Perry
December 15, 2019
Do a Google search for the term “global warming consensus” and you’ll nd more than 24,000 links
(and more than 19,000,000 results without the quotations marks). The rst link for “global warming
consensus” is to this NASA webpage with the title “Scienti c Consensus” and the following statement:
Multiple studies published in peer-reviewed scienti c journals show that 97 percent

or more of actively publishing climate scientists agree: Climate-warming trends over
the past century are extremely likely due to human activities. In addition, most of the
leading scienti c organizations worldwide have issued public statements endorsing
this position.
Here’s what Michael Crichton had to say about “scienti c consensus” back in 2003 when he gave a
lecture at the California Institute of Technology titled “Aliens Cause Global Warming” (emphasis mine):
I want to pause here and talk about this notion of consensus, and the rise of what has
been called consensus science. I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious
development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of
consensus has been the rst refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming
that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees
on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you’re being had.
Let’s be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus.
Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one
investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are
veri able by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is
relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great
precisely because they broke with the consensus. There is no such thing as
consensus science. If it’s consensus, it isn’t science. If it’s science, it isn’t
consensus. Period.
In addition, let me remind you that the track record of the consensus is nothing to be
proud of. Let’s review a few cases.In past centuries, the greatest killer of women was
fever following childbirth. One woman in six died of this fever. In 1795, Alexander
Gordon of Aberdeen suggested that the fevers were infectious processes, and he was
able to cure them. The consensus said no.
In 1843, Oliver Wendell Holmes claimed puerperal fever was contagious, and presented
compelling evidence. The consensus said no.
In 1849, Semmelweiss demonstrated that sanitary techniques virtually eliminated

puerperal fever in hospitals under his management. The consensus said he was a Jew,
ignored him, and dismissed him from his post. There was in fact no agreement on
puerperal fever until the start of the twentieth century. Thus the consensus took one
hundred and twenty ve years to arrive at the right conclusion despite the e orts of the
prominent “skeptics” around the world, skeptics who were demeaned and ignored. And
despite the constant ongoing deaths of women.
There is no shortage of other examples. In the 1920s in America, tens of thousands of

people, mostly poor, were dying of a disease called pellagra. The consensus of scientists
said it was infectious, and what was necessary was to nd the “pellagra germ.” The US
government asked a brilliant young investigator, Dr. Joseph Goldberger, to nd the
cause. Goldberger concluded that diet was the crucial factor. The consensus remained
wedded to the germ theory.
Goldberger demonstrated that he could induce the disease through diet. He

demonstrated that the disease was not infectious by injecting the blood of a pellagra
patient into himself, and his assistant. They and other volunteers swabbed their noses
with swabs from pellagra patients, and swallowed capsules containing scabs from
pellagra rashes in what were called “Goldberger’s lth parties.” Nobody contracted
pellagra.
The consensus continued to disagree with him. There was, in addition, a social factor-
southern States disliked the idea of poor diet as the cause, because it meant that social
reform was required. They continued to deny it until the 1920s. Result-despite a
twentieth century epidemic, the consensus took years to see the light.
Probably every schoolchild notices that South America and Africa seem to t together
rather snugly, and Alfred Wegener proposed, in 1912, that the continents had in fact
drifted apart. The consensus sneered at continental drift for fty years. The theory was
most vigorously denied by the great names of geology-until 1961, when it began to seem
as if the sea oors were spreading. The result: it took the consensus fty years to
acknowledge what any schoolchild sees.
And shall we go on? The examples can be multiplied endlessly. Jenner and smallpox,
Pasteur and germ theory. Saccharine, margarine, repressed memory, ber and colon
cancer, hormone replacement therapy. The list of consensus errors goes on and on.
Finally, I would remind you to notice where the claim of consensus is invoked.
Consensus is invoked only in situations where the science is not solid enough.
Nobody says the consensus of scientists agrees that E=mc2. Nobody says the consensus
is that the sun is 93 million miles away. It would never occur to anyone to speak that
way.
Related: From John Kay’s 2007 op-ed “Science is the pursuit of the truth, not consensus“:
The notion of a monolithic “science,” meaning what scientists say, is pernicious and the
notion of “scienti c consensus” actively so. The route to knowledge is transparency in
disagreement and openness in debate. The route to truth is the pluralist expression of
con icting views in which, often not as quickly as we might like, good ideas drive out
bad. There is no room in this process for any notion of “scienti c consensus.”

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Michael Crichton explains why there is ‘no such thing as

December 15, 2019

Multiple studies published in peer-reviewed scienti c journals show that 97 percent

In 1849, Semmelweiss demonstrated that sanitary techniques virtually eliminated

There is no shortage of other examples. In the 1920s in America, tens of thousands of

Goldberger demonstrated that he could induce the disease through diet. He

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