Consensus

Back in my college days (circa 1988) the term 'consensus' wasn't used much in scientific circles. My major at that time was anthropology and I was looking at becoming an archaeologist. I had to take some hard science classes and I don't ever remember 'consensus' being widely used as a credible answer to any scientific question. We had peer-review and testing/confirmation of experiments. A thing was either reproducable or not. Confirmed or not. Theory or Fact. The advent of Consensus has blurred those tried-and-true standards. Now we can pick and choose what we like, get a group of scientists together to agree on it, and declare the result a Fact.

Remember when discussing a consensus that even a group of Scientologists can reach a consensus; that doesn't make their conclusions correct.

I have more to say, but I'll stew a bit before I post it.