Financial Times columnist John Kay has a column in today’s paper that really clearly states the difference between science and scientific consensus (often used to generate science based policy decisions). It’s a good read, if a bit controversial.
Taken out of the climate change debate and placed instead in the field of neuroscience, I think it’s pretty spot on. Fifty years ago there was a consensus that each neuron had one single neurotransmitter. That’s one example of many, where consensus was scientifically wrong.
Jim
Discoverers and Discoveries 
It’s an excellent insight, and good thing to be told about, thanks.On the third hand Kay seems to be coming from a very idealistic version of what science is. One in which science is about ‘truth’ not a social construct, unfortunately… truth is a social construct: different societies construe it differently, and the claim by some scientists to be the arbiters of what counts as truth, is a truth only accepted by people who agree with them…
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