Is "consensus" the same thing as "proof"?

Question

Does the number of people - even the number of smart people - who believe something to be true, equate to physical, tangible proof that it is?

Can a prosecutor walk into court with only the argument that the cops, after years of experience, are good at sensing who is lying and who is guilty, and almost all of them say that Mr. Jones committed the crime?

Answer 1

The usual denier rant is there is no evidence, consensus isn't "proof" the cooling of the 70s etc etc etc.

The Facts are the current consensus is based on 40 years of continuing research from a range of different scientific research Groups like NASA, USGS, NOAA, NSIDC, BAS, AAD (the last two are the national Antarctic study groups of the U.K & Australia)

This is not just climatologist's, but oceanographers, glaciologist's, archaeologists

Recently even companies like Exxon have distanced themselves from groups they used to support that deny AGW, and Exxon have admitted that AGW is happening. The aims of these groups is obvious, wide public acceptance of AGW will mean a basic changes in the worlds use of hydrocarbons affecting oil companies profits.

Your analogy to a court case seems to be leaving out that "the cop" apart from experience had the evidence of co2 rising, temperature rising, arctic ice melting ,sea level rising, increased ocean acidification.

For co2 there is no other suspect we know volcanic outputs and they are 100th of human outputs

For temp, despite spirited nonsense from one Russian scientist the Sun is not to blame

Arctic ice melt is obvious

http://igloo.atmos.uiuc.edu/cgi-bin/test...

sea level rise is a documented fact, 1920-2000 for Australian ports

http://images.aad.gov.au/img.py/2882.jpg...

Answer 2

The IPCC never claimed to have proof of AGW.

Even if it was proven beyond a shadow of doubt that AGW was too small to measure, this would not preclude the IPCC from developing a concensus that governments should behave as if it were real.

The IPCC has really manipulated the process as they have one small comittee to decide if AGW is real and the rest to decide what to do about it.  It is clear that the comittee is not there to be objective, but to to find that AGW is real, but the best that can be coaxed from them is that it most likely exceeded 0.2 degrees last century.  

Answer 3

Nope.

Truth does not depend upon human understanding.

The universe existed before we understood what it was.

That said, duke says it best: "if a large number of smart and informed people agree on something; they are *more likely* to be right about it than the average person".

To continue your legal analogy, if twelve informed and honest peers become convinced of a mans guilt - that is, they reach a consensus - it still doesn't mean that the man is guilty but it is enough to condemn him to jail or death.

This is the human world.

All societies are based on consensus.

Answer 4

Nope, it's merely indicative of the overwhelming evidence.  It's really hard to get scientists to agree on anything.  If you can get a scientific consensus, it means the scientific evidence is really d**n strong.

Answer 5

When the consensus is among the jurors and judge, even when it is based only on testimony of learned witnesses, the consensus is a proof.

A proof is a proof because people accept it as such. A proof accepted by large numbers of people has to be proven false. There is no assumption that a proof once accepted will be set aside by those who have accepted it merely because someone knows it is false.

You have only to look at the persistence of religion to know how persistent the acceptance of a 'proof' is.

Answer 6

Those two things are worlds apart and don't even belong in the same argument. There is no such thing as a consensus in science, that is a political term.

Answer 7

It's closely related, but I tried to find out how many scientist donate to their own cause on GW and couldn't find any sources. They only asked for donations.

Answer 8

Not at all.  Consensus is an agreement of opinions or conclusions about a given topic.  It is not, in and of itself, proof that said opinion is correct.

To paraphrase Berkeley Breathed, "If a million people believe a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing."

Keep in mind, though, that if a large number of smart and informed people agree on something; they are *more likely* to be right about it than the average person.

Answer 9

Concensus is not proof, but ideas and words can be manipulated to make it appear as proof, as in the case of global warming.  It would seem the gap between concensus and proof narrows the further politically-left you go.

Answer 10

Consensus has nothing to do with proof, in fact historically consensus has often been wrong.  Pythagoras is credited for the Pythagorean Paradigm in the 6th century BC.  The Paradigm states that the orbits of the planets, sun, moon, and stars are perfectly circular, the speed of the orbits is uniform, and the Earth is in the center of the orbits.  It took 2000 years before the heliocentric model proposed Copernicus was taken seriously. (He was wrong as well, but it was a step in the right direction).

Very intelligent people believed Pythagoras, yet he could not have been more wrong.  Just because believers spout off a bunch of scientific organizations who believe in AWG does not provide any evidence that it is true.  There are plenty of scientists, climatologists and even IPCC reviewers who actively question if not completely refute global warming.