User:Jaymax/Scientific opinion

Starting point for an Article on Scientific Opinion

'Scientific opinions' are opinions formed via the scientific method, and so are necessarily evidence backed. A scientific opinion, representing the formally-agreed consensus of a scientific body or establishment, often takes the form of a published position paper citing the research producing the Scientific evidence upon which the opinion is based. 'The Scientific Opinion' can be compared to 'the public opinion' and means the complex collection of the opinions of many different scientific organizations and entities, and also the opinions of scientists undertaking scientific research in the relevant field.

Refs

NB: OCR, so character errors.

Popular Science Monthly

Aug 1878 Winchell - is corruptable

Litarary Notices - Adamites and Preadamites (evolutionary) - Alexander Winchell LL.D. Also Geological Society of America Pre-Adamite#ca._1800_-_present

"Religious faith is more enduring than granite. Scientific opinion is uncertain; it may endure like granite or vanish like a summer cloud. Religious faith is simple, pure, and incorruptible; scientific opinion is a compound of all things, corruptible and incorruptible. Let us not adulterate pure faith with corruptible science. An unadulterated faith can be defended by the sturdiest blows of reason and logic; a corrupt faith puts reason and logic to shame."

Mar 1894 based on observation

Fossil Man* - John G Rothermel

"There have been many attempts made to measure the age of geological strata -- none, however, that can be said to be satisfactory. Not only are any experimental data that can be used very uncertain indices of what actually took place in the remote past, but the bias of the experimenter in favor of this or that hypothes is is apt to be impressed on the result attained. It may be stated, however, that scientific opinion, based on careful observations and comparative computations from these observations, the details of which our time will not permit us to go into, seems now generally agreed that the Glacial period closed from ten to fifteen thousand years ago.

Dec 1913 Wallace - pendulum

Obituary for Alfred Russel Wallace, 1823-1913 By Dr Henry Fairfield Osborn Rsch Prof of Zoo, Columbia Uni

"In closing this review of a great life, we can not refrain from reflecting on the pendlulum of scientific opinion. The discovery of a great truth such as the law of Selection is always followed by an over-valuation, from which there is certain to be a reaction."

Popular Science

Nov 1925 Sleep - taking a consensus

Unlikely to use, lacks external notability, just an example

Is Sleep Just a Useless Habit? Scientists seek to Reclaim the Hours Now Lost in Slumber - Newton Burke

"An average man at 45 years today has spent about 15 years of his life in slumber. Despite the latest experiments, however, it is the concensus of scientific opinion that thus far there has been developed no way for the average man to reduce his sleep materially without a bad effect on his health."

July 1943 Tobacco - gets it wrong

Unlikely to use, Author lacks notability

Americans smoke more today: What is the truth ... here are some facts you should know. William Vogel, Jr.

"The great controversy about nicotine will probably rage as long as there are smokers and nonsmokers. Generally, the best scientific opinion is that nicotine is no more harmful to the average person than the caffeine In coffee or tea."

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

Jul 1950 -

Freedom in Science - Michael Polanyi

Subsection: THE AUTHORITY OF SCIENTIFIC OPINION The authority exercised by scientific opinion is merely selective, not directive. It acts as a public valuer, as the guardian of weights and measures, and as a public testing-station for the whole field of scientific life. There are many opportunities for this regulative function of scientific opinion, apart from the refereeing of papers; in fact so many that I can only mention some of them here. The publication of a paper in a learned journal does by no means entail the acceptance of its claims by science. The response given to it by scientific opinion may vary greatly. Otto Hahn’s brief publication on the subject of atomic fission in January 1939 evoked within a year some 150 papers confirming and elaborating his discovery. By contrast, a paper published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society by Lord Rayleigh in May 1947, which made claims of at least equal importance for the field of atomic physics, and which, to the non-specialist may well have seemed just as well documented as Hahn’s paper, was unhesitatingly brushed aside as unsound; even though not one physicist I consulted on the subject could point out any error In Lord Rayleigh’s experiments, or explain his results differently than he did. They just did not believe in them and thought it a waste of time to hunt for the mistake which accounted for the result.. The varied responses of scientific opinion to current scientific publication should help to guide the attention of scientists toward the real growing points of science and should warn them of specious hopes and blind alleys.

Scientific opinion itself cannot be said to exist except as the opinions expressed by person, who are recognized as scientists. A person is not a scientist simply because he says that he is one, and it is a primary function of scientific opinion to determine who shall have a voice in the formation of such opinion. The mutual recognition of scientists by each other is indispensable to the existence of science as a coherent activity. Without it, the mutual adjustment of each scientist’s program to the achievements of the others would be cut off. The process of compiling and acerediting textbooks, of making scientific appointments, of establishing scientific institutions, could no longer be guided by current scientific opinion and decisions taken in these matters would become disjointed, arbitrary, and presumably determined by other interests than those of science. It would not only become practically meaningless to describe anyone as a scientist, but even to refer to any statement as a scientific proposition. Science would become, in effect, extinct.

Hence, a society which wants to foster science must accept the authority of scientific opinion. It must allow It freely to exercise all those regulative function, over scientific life which are indispensable to the process of self- coordination and indeed to the very existence of science. Any society, any public opinion, or public authority, which does not defer to the natural self-government of science cannot hope to see science flourishing within It, realm. Scientists have been accused of demanding that society should pay them for their own amusement. This accusation I, false, for the interests of scientists are shared by an enormous public.

It is doubtful whether the immense technical consequences of our increased knowledge of nature have affected the world as profoundly as the discoveries of Copernicus, Newton, and Darwin, the practical values of which were negligible. There are good reasons therefore to demand popular respect for science on the same grounds on which scientists themselves stand when dedicating themselves to science. But even If that were not so, even If society at large were only interested in the advantages to be derived from scientific progress for the material well-being of men, the same logic would Inexorably hold. Science could still be cultivated only as an autonomous body setting Itself its own aims in the light of its own tradition, and guided by the authority of scientific opinion.

The part to play by a society which, for whatever reasons, wishes to foster science can only be to offer opportunities for the pursuit of science. It should provide facilities for every good scientist to pursue his own interest in science, to be recognized as a good scientist.

...

Scientific opinion guards the channels of scientific communication and exercises indispensable selective functions all over scientific life. Its coherence and governance is indeed a condition for the very existence of science as a recognizable entity. Scientific opinion must also act as the trustee of society as a whole for the distribution of funds allocated by society to the cultivation of science.

Dec 1946

The Foundations of Freedom in Science - Michael Polanyi

"SCIENTIFIC OPINION AS GUARDIAN AND GUIDE The organized forms of scientific life publications, university postss research grants and scientific dlstinctions form a system of opportunities and restraints for the pursuit of science. This system is governed by scientific opinion. Scientific opinion prevents cranks, trends and habitual blunderers from gaining ground in science. At the samc time it apportions credit to valid contributions, appraising end supporting their authors according to their merits. Those disciplinary and administrative actions are indispensible to science as cultivated today by thousands of contributors. By performing them, scientific opinion enforces the coherence of science, which is the basis of its freedom.

We can clearly see now the inadequacy of the individualist theory of freedom in science. Individual impulses are respected in science only insofar as they are dedicated to the tradition of science and disciplined by its standards.

Modern science depends for its material existence on support from outside. Scientific opinion which watches over coherence and freedom from within science cannot fulfill this function unless its decisions are respected outside science. In allocating their support to different scientific purposes, outside authorities must accept the guidance of scientific opinion. They would otherwise inevitably disrupt the coherence of science and undermine its freedom.

Misc

Stilglitz (World Bank)

OPENING ADDRESS Knowledge for Development: Economic Science, Economic Policy, and Economic Advice (Annual World Bank Conference) Joseph E. Stiglitz

"In this paper, I have tried to identify several of the ways in which science, including economic science, is distinguished from ideology: a willingness to question everything and a recognition of the uncertainties associated with our knowledge, and the concomitant humility that that instills. In closing, I want to emphasize a further attribute of the scientific process: the value it places on openness and democracy. Scientific advances require an open exchange of information: universities are committed to the importance of free speech, and we, and other public agencies that fund research, insist that data be made publicly available, so that any results can be examined for replicability and accuracy. Open debate and discussion is both a natural part of the questioning spirit and the recognition of uncertainty, and a requisite for the successful advance of science.

A second attribute of science is that ideas and arguments are evaluated on their own merit, not on the basis of authority or received wisdom. In this sense, science is very democratic. Science pays no attention to status, social background, age, or any of the other myriad characteristics that form part of our social structures. Even a doctorate from a first-rate university does not give one’s opinions or evidence any more weight before the court of scientific opinion.

It is with this spirit — the spirit of questioning, of the recognition of the limitations of our knowledge and our quest to expand the bounds, with the full recognition of the uncertainties, a spirit of open and democratic debate and discussion — that I look forward to the discussion of the next two days."

Wynne

Brian Wynne (Univ of Lancaster). (1991). Knowledges in context. Science, Technology, & Human Values, 16(1), 117.

"the enormous amount of sheer effort needed for members of the public to monitor sources of scientific information, judge between them, keep up with shifting scientific understandings, distinguish consensus from isolated scientific opinion, and decide how expert knowledge needs qualifying for use in their particular situation. They must also judge what level of knowledge is good enough for them. This is not necessarily the same level as scientists have assumed; the threshold may be looser, or tighter."