[standeven]

It’s fine to question magazine articles that contain lines like “4 out of 5 doctors recommend…”.

It’s fine to question individual doctors.

It’s fine to question corporate-sponsored think tanks.

Is it fine to question a scientific consensus on effective ways to fight a global pandemic?

[ratsmack]

>Is it fine to question a scientific consensus on effective ways to fight a global pandemic?

Yes, it is always fine to question scientific conclusions with legitimate concerns.

Or we could always revert to letting the church decide what valid science is, I guess.

[f6v]

> Yes, it is always fine to question scientific conclusions with legitimate concerns.

See, scientific consensus is usually based on data and certain statistics. Those who question it usually express opinions without addressing the data and methodology. An opinion is not enough, you need to be very specific.

[errantmind]

Questioning something does not require an opinion.

[f6v]

Questioning something without facts to back it up is pointless.

[errantmind]

I'm not sure what that means. Whoever makes the claim provides the facts. If you aren't convinced by those facts then you don't accept the claim. You don't need to bring facts of your own to refuse to believe a claim.

[watwut]

Yeah, except majority of those were nit legitimate questions. They were partisanship or other immediate political goal motivated bullshit.

[jjoonathan]

In high-context environments that correctly incentivize truth seeking and long form debate? Sure!

In low-context, short form meme warfare with the only intention of spreading an opinion that the consensus believes is both incorrect and detrimental? Absolutely not. That's what you're doing right now. Knock it off.

[somenameforme]

When it becomes impossible to be able to reasonably comfortably speak against a consensus, that consensus loses any sort of meaning because it becomes impossible to determine whether it's being upheld by coercion or not. It also becomes completely impossible to carry out science in such an environment because such pressures invariably leak into e.g. universities, career opportunities, grants, and so on.

So without being able to reasonably comfortably speak against a scientific consensus you end up with neither science nor a consensus.

[account42]

> Is it fine to question a scientific consensus on effective ways to fight a global pandemic?

If it cannot be questioned, is there really a consensus?