I’m frankly amazed that Tyson even agreed to be on Del’s show, but this is a revealing exchange nonetheless.
Tyson doesn’t seem to understand a very basic point: the purpose of the scientific method is not to “produce consensus” but rather to discover the truth.
Neil deGrasse Tyson on Why Certain Medical Experts Were Silenced During the COVID Pandemic
"I'm not interested in medical pedigree. I'm interested in medical consensus and scientific consensus…The individual scientist does not matter."@delbigtree @neiltyson @HighWireTalk… pic.twitter.com/DBeVbfSYln
— Chief Nerd (@TheChiefNerd) April 6, 2023
Entire interview here.
Tyson is and has always been a credentialed idiot rather than a scientist.
I’ve always considered Tyson to be nothing but a loud-mouth ass-hole who knows a little bit about science but far from enough to be taken seriously. He is in show biz, not science. A collectivist looking to be the state science jester.
Kinda like Canada’s leading science ass-hole … David Suzuki, who just retired after 44 years at the tax-payer CBC trough. An entomologist who doubles as a climate expert who can predict the weather 50 years out.
He’s actually a geneticist, not an entomologist but when it comes to assholes, you got that right. He left science when he left genetics and went on to build his career based on hysteria pimping for the CBC. His premise is everything that humans do above the level of stone age subsistence is destroying the planet. He started out as somewhat a rebel and is now, in our hollowed out and suicidal culture, “mainstream”.
Your thinkin’ of Suzuki.
Tyson has a BS in physics and a master’s in astronomy, neither of which grant his opinions on public policy any validity at all.
Perhaps I should have read what you were replying to, before I shot my kbrd mouth off.
much Bill Nye the Lysenkoism guy
DING! DING! DING!
We have a winner!!
“I want to pause here and talk about this notion of consensus, and the rise of what has been called consensus science. I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you’re being had.
Let’s be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus. There is no such thing as consensus science. If it’s consensus, it isn’t science. If it’s science, it isn’t consensus. Period.”
Michael Crichton 2003
Sounds about right to me.
He confuses consensus with Orwell’s Groupthink.
Del is fantastic!
Yep.
Absolutely right. Most scientific and medical research today is false; based on junk science. Consensus from a 1,000 studies all making the same false claim is still nothing more than junk. Academics & government scientists, mostly leftists, are all in on the scam.
I find NdeG Tyson’s attitude appalling for a person who is supposed to be highly educated, or maybe that’s the problem.
I’d rather watch an interview with Mike Tyson than the psuedo intellectual idiot in the posted video.
I believe author Michael Crichton was spot on in his novel about the global warming industry.
Ask Tyson how many shares he has in the Death Syrum and how much money he made. Stop the conversation until he answers the question.
Ask Trudeau the same question.
Always follow the money. The heart will follow the cheque book.
Consensus can only be reached at the lowest common denominator and by its very nature cannot last. It is not a recipe for long term success. Perhaps that it why politicians strive for consensus as it can win elections but you’re not beholden to it.
What an idiot. He understands nothing about science. He’s a parrot regurgitating what he heard.
Galileo went against the scientific consensus, as did Pasteur and the Wright Brothers and Tesla and other great innovators. It seems that Tyson is toeing the line rather than risk his lucrative role as a top scientist.
Exactly. I would like to see Tyson’s response to “there was a physicists consensus against Einstein called the Deutsche Physik. Should we erase him and his work from current physics as a result?”
I recall Reading Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolution, the individual scientist does matter.
Galileo?
Copernicus?
Tyson is an asshat.
Tyson is more movie star than scientist.. In order to keep that gig going its best to not rock the boat with unpopular ideas..
My consensus on consensus is its designed to cater to politics.. Think lynch mob.. What good is 10 000 opinions taken from outside their field of expertise?.. A mass opinion based on what exactly..
What’s is it?.. Extortionary claims require extraordinary proof.. Its fine that most people believe in ghosts because overall the belief is harmless.. Throw some salt over your shoulder and don’t walk under a ladder?.. BUT if the consensus is being used to completely rework everything around you.. mRNA gene therapy or global warming?..
When science becomes a business plan with heavy political overtones.. Consensus = Weasel words.. Notice that Tyson is yelling.. Is that part of the consensus?..
He makes Bill Nye look intelligent.
Which takes some doing.
I remember being excited to watch Tyson re-doing Sagan’s Cosmos series. Much sharper clearer images, it was all going well, and then he dragged in “climate change”.
Turned it off, never went back.
Rewatching Carl Sagan’s version of “Cosmos” I began to hear an undertone which rose to dominate the series: human beings were a threat to the future of this planet. This is a long running concept which sprung upon the American Public with Rachael Carson’s “Silent Spring”. The Eco Saints have dominated story time ever since then with tales of doom and disaster.
Didn’t the story about Galileo teach Tyson anything?
Why be amazed Tyson went on the show? Arrogant narcissists think they have nothing to fear because they’re above legitimate criticism.
Consensus-based-science is exactly the thing warned-about back in the 70s by Richard Feynman. (He was the guy who did the public O-ring vs ice water demonstration during the Challenger inquiry).
Feynman’s term for it was ‘cargo cult science’, which seems to be the politically preferred means of fixing today’s hottest-button big money issues (climate change, green energy, Covid vaccination & lockdowns, critical race theory, gender fluidity, etc.).
And for some odd reason I wonder how far Mr. Feynman would’ve gotten, these days…
Tyson is a stupid person’s “smart man”, just like Bill Nye.
Science:
1. Make an observation.
2. Ask a question.
3. Form a hypothesis, or testable explanation.
4. Make a prediction based on the hypothesis.
5. Test the prediction.
6. Iterate: use the results to make new hypotheses or predictions.
Not science:
Everything else.
I would add point 5 a, – repeatability and verification. Other people have to test and verify you hypothesis. Science is about evidence and testing, testing, testing, NOT consensus. Regarding Neil deGrasse Tyson, as B. Bunny would say, “What a maroon!”
I also wish Del would have mentioned evidence and testing rather than just marching out the names of prominent doctors/scientist that were going against the narrative. Not a bad thing to do, but he should also have mentioned evidence and testing.
How … olllllddddd fashioned of you … because SOON … AI will completely eliminate that olllllddd method which will only be practiced by scientists with olllllddd balls. Fer Kryst’s sake … we already have “models” that short-circuit that olllllddd methodology. And EVERYONE accept models … as “scientific”. Models can “prove” any question one cares to ask.
What you describe ain’t science, no matter what the consensus is.
One of my favorite quotes on computer models comes from RAJ, who I think posts here occasionally. Regardless, because I can’t remember the exact quote, here’s a close paraphrase:
“Climate model projections seldom reflect what’s actually happening in the real world. Instead, they seem to reflect the fantasies of what their ‘climate scientist’ programmers’ wish were happening. And in that respect, they’re not science, they’re climate porn.”
Somebody shut that Galileo dude up already. I’m sick of his unscientific nonsense.
Tyson is a pompous ass.
Even if Tyson were a real scientist, that is no reason to listen to him on matters of public policy.
Then again, people listen to actors, and worse to form their opinions on public policy.
Now I’m gotta go see a diesel mechanic because my hot water tank is leaking, then a visit to the dentist to ask him what kind of chainsaw best suits my needs.
Mike Tyson , who bit an ear off, is the smarter Tyson!
No, the purpose of the scientific method is not to discover the Truth. The purpose of the scientific method is to eliminate the False. The truth can never be discovered by the scientific method. The best we can do is bound the truth within error bars. Truth is the realm of religion, philosophy, and mathematics, not science.
Whenever someone capitalizes the “t” in truth, you know he’s trying to sell something.
Even if I wrote it with truth uncapitalized I’d still be right. Everything we know through the scientific method is only provisionally correct, within error bars, until new information shows a theory to be false.
We get useful engineering out of quantum mechanics and relativity, but we know those theories are fundamentally incompatible – one or both of the theories is wrong, or at best incomplete. But we can’t say that either one is true, only that they haven’t been proven false yet.
Semantic claptrap.
Do you suggest that we qualify every factual statement with “as far as we can tell, with the data so far, X is true.”?
Newtonian mechanics is still used all the time, to great effect.
You seem to suggest that the existence of error bars somehow renders something “untrue.”
You can pick apart any statement:
“La plume de ma tante est sur le bureau.”
No it isn’t, there are a few air molecules between the pen and the desk.
“This knife is sharp.”
No it isn’t, I can’t shave with it.
“My computer screensaver has spaceships.”
No, it doesn’t, its just a collection of tiny colored dots.
“Captain Kirk commanded the Starship Enterprise.”
No he didn’t, there is no such person as captain Kirk, and no such vessel as the starship Enterprise.
Again, semantic claptrap.
If you really don’t want to get bogged down in semantics, try using Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory or some other logical formalism.
It took Whitehead and Russell over 300 pages of the Principia Mathematica to formally prove 1+1=2 from a minimum of axioms and rules of inference, so unless you want people to speak like that, any statement about anything can be logically picked apart by anybody carefully choosing how they define words, like “true”, “proven”, etc.
So, if all the “scientists” are dumbed down, threatened or silenced, the “consensus” is worthless, as planned.
He also Believes the world is pear-shaped, like him; his physical “consensus.”
Was he made the official TV and MSM science guy because he is black?
Was he a consensus quota hire by the elite people that run the MSM to make the racist knuckledraggers less racist?
Ooops TV’s, “America’s Dad”, Dr Huxtable is a rapist.
TV’s Fresh Prince is a sucker punching Cuck.
TV’s and the MSM’s smartest guy in the room is a flake.
How’s that racist consensus thing working out?
It’s amusing that a highly paid, highly visible … ‘scientist-of-color’ … isn’t interested in “pedigrees”. He’s made an entire career as a “pedigreed” “scientist-of-color” … who ALWAYS spouts the Party line. And that Party just happens to be the anti-American Democrat Party.
No. The purpose of the scientific method is not to discover the truth. You don’t get it.
The purpose of the scientific method is to propose a hypothesis and for others to try to disprove it.
The hypothesis that cannot be disproved is not necessarily true or correct. It may approximate what is true. But it inevitably will be proven wrong and displaced with something else. There is no truth.
And so it is essential that to progress the paradigm must always be challenged.
Consensus only leads to stagnation and the end of discovery.
Sorry, Jenny, but it is true that F=ma, and that 1+1=2, and that the Mössbauer effect is a real thing, aka “true.”
No, this is a fundamental misunderstanding of science. Science can only disprove the false, not prove the truth.
Semantic claptrap.
F=ma.
1+1=2.
Mössbauer effect exists.
Oh, and the Earth orbits around the Sun, at least about their center of gravity, to many, many decimal places. You would argue that unless its an infinite amount of decimal places, its not “true.”, In fact, what with your relativity/quantum mechanics thing, you would even say pictures in our heads can make things “untrue”, as there exists not one single experiment that can disprove either theory, but, because of the conflict between them, you can declare both as “untrue”, as if you own the effin truth.
Funny, you assign relative values to “truth”, unless you are a heliocentric/flat earth kinda guy, or are you one of those “no truth exists” kinda people? If so, the apple pie you like ain’t really an apple pie, its a confusion of mathematics that impinges upon your taste buds to con you.
…and yet, folk are drawn in by your denial of truths.
Suck,
Don’t dismiss things you don’t agree with as “semantics”.
Nothing can ever be true. Because there is always the probability that it can be false.
In 50 years almost everything we once thought to be true has either been proven false or is being seriously questioned.
Even the very fabric of the universe, of time, of gravity and consciousness has all been disrupted.
Git yer nose in a book and git up to speed there cowboy.
Newtonian mechanics: Over 300 years, still going strong.
Maxwell’s electromagnetism: Over 160 years, still going strong.
General relativity: Over 100 years, still going strong.
Quantum field theory: Almost 100 years, still going strong.
I suggest that you Git yer nose in a book and git up to speed there cowboy.
“Nothing can ever be true.”
Communism is evil.
What is the probability that this assertion is false.
Tyson: “I’m not interested in medical pedigree. I’m interested in medical consensus and scientific consensus…The individual scientist does not matter.”
Yes. We know. Individuals are an annoying side issue and of no value at all. It is The Narrative which is important. The Cause, if you will, which Mr. Tyson’s “Consensus!” exists to serve.
Whenever anyone says “science” and “consensus” in the same sentence you know that they are A) an idiot and B) lying. You can talk about the prevailing opinion on a scientific issue, or the consensus on whether or not to perform a certain experiment a certain way, but the construction “scientific consensus” is socialist politics and a lie, both at once.
Neil deGrasse Tyson, demonstrating once more that lying liars are gonna lie.
“The individual scientist does not matter.” Unless it’s Tyson, delivering his narcissistic nonsense from on high. Science is not a collectivist, communist endeavor.
Sadly he still gets airtime, when there are much, much more intelligent people in this world speaking the truth.
There are much, much more intelligent people than him spouting BS as well. Take Michio Kaku, a half-decent theoretical physicist, but he’s got it in his head that one world gov’t is a great idea, or Leonard Susskind, or Stephen Hawking, or Einstein…all three of whom are unrivaled genius’ in their fields, but all three of whom had or have some some pretty dumb political views.
And just like that, the Swiss government backs away from Covid 19 vaccinations.
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2023/04/swiss_government_withdraws_all_recommendations_for_covid_vaccines.html
And what happens when the scientific consensus swings back to “air, earth, water, fire” as the answer to everything?………
The term “scientific consensus” is an oxymoron, and by using it, you tacitly give ground to the Lysenkoists and post-modernists.
They will bring it on factual or not, whether we agree or not. Just curious to watch how society is going down the drain. Like some others on SDA, getting too old to care.
I tend to think that this is not something that can be fixed, it must rather be adapted to.
I am not suggesting “adapting to” the left, I am rather suggesting that such things as industrialization, information technology, AI, etc can be adapted to in a way that preserves human dignity and freedom, but, alas, as of yet, we have barely adjusted to agriculture, and haven’t even really started to adjust to industrialization, much less IT and AI, and who knows what bricks are yet to be thrown through our window?
Let us drink a toast to the future, which no doubt contains horrors unimagined, but the chance of joys unimagined as well. It is always darkest before the dawn, yadda yadda yadda…
Lastly, there are few things more unethical than trying to apply the scientific method to human populations:
Hypothesis: Jews are bad.
Prediction: If we remove all Jews from the population, people will be happier.
Test: National Socialism.
Hypothesis: CO2 causes catastrophic global warming.
Prediction: If we stop emitting CO2, people will be happier.”
Test: Carbon taxes, etc.
Hypothesis: Booze is bad.
Prediction: If we ban booze, people will be happier.
Test: Prohibition.
The list goes on and on, and even that makes the assumption that the people putting forth these hypotheses, predictions and tests are acting in good faith to the scientific method, an assumption that I do not find plausible.
Lastly, as some of you may know, I have a hybrid e-bike 2-stroke that I use to get around.
The PTBs spout all kinds of crap about the evils of CO2, etc, and I get around at almost 100 mpg, with 50lb of cargo…but it’s illegal. One would have thought that burning so little fuel would be rewarded. They don’t give a crap about the environment, all they care about is control. Of course, we do have such members of the electorate who would happily shoot or run over any 2-wheeler on the road for the crime of very mildly inconveniencing them, if they could get away with it, and my how they would howl if people were allowed to shoot back. Such is Canada now. Darkest before the dawn.
Gilbert & Sullivan.
Captured the decline of British Society.
Who is doing that service now?
Cause that Pompous Ass is the very personification of what ails America Intellectuals..
Self styled and dumber than hell.
Argumentum ad Populum
Also known as ‘appealing to the people’, this (logical) fallacy presumes that a proposition must be true because most/many believe it to be true.
https://www.logicalfallacies.org/argumentum-ad-populum.html
“If we all think alike, no one is thinking.”
Benjamin Franklin
If I understand my detractors above, saying “Argumentum ad Populum” is a logical fallacy is itself a logical fallacy of the same sort.