While consensus may be an admirable political objective, it is the enemy of science and truth. The term “settled science” is an oxymoron. The admonishment that we should “trust the experts” is a trope of authoritarianism. Science is disruptive, irreverent, dynamic, rebellious, and democratic. Consensus and appeals to authority (be it CDC, WHO, Bill Gates, Anthony Fauci, or the Vatican) are features of religion, not science. Science is tumult. Empirical truth generally arises from the tilled, agitated, and upturned soils of debate. Doubt, skepticism, questioning, and dissent are its
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