"Consensus" is a crappy word
Jul. 23rd, 2008 08:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
andygatesAs in the consensus of the scientific community that anthropogenic global warming (AGW) is real and dangerous. See, "consensus" just means "something agreed upon" - and that makes it sound like a matter of opinion. And that, in turn, makes it sound like "just" a matter of opinion, as if the opinions were what mattered. The word "consensus" makes it sound like it belongs down among philosophy and politics and religion.
But this isn't an opinion like that. This isn't a coffee-house blathering about Kant or a reactionary blog "me too"-ing about the evils of immigration. This is an opinion about observed fact. It's closer to the consensus that 2 + 2 = 4 than the consensus that no man is an island. Agreed observation, not agreed opinion. The difference matters.
Meh, I'm letting the Viscount Upper-Class Twit Monckton affair get to me. Partly that's because The Register, an IT webrag which gives a sardonic and amusing slant on the trade, has taken up a denialist stance. And frankly, if they can boost such bad science, I have to take the rest of their reporting with the same bushel of salt. Sorry, Reg, you've lost a reader.
But this isn't an opinion like that. This isn't a coffee-house blathering about Kant or a reactionary blog "me too"-ing about the evils of immigration. This is an opinion about observed fact. It's closer to the consensus that 2 + 2 = 4 than the consensus that no man is an island. Agreed observation, not agreed opinion. The difference matters.
Meh, I'm letting the Viscount Upper-Class Twit Monckton affair get to me. Partly that's because The Register, an IT webrag which gives a sardonic and amusing slant on the trade, has taken up a denialist stance. And frankly, if they can boost such bad science, I have to take the rest of their reporting with the same bushel of salt. Sorry, Reg, you've lost a reader.
