A fine choice for the House Committee for Science, Space, and Technology

[Fragony]

Do you know who also got a feeling, Adolf Hitler

[Sasaki Kojiro]

And the alternative method is?...
If a flawed method still gives benficial results (and it does, otherwise you wouldn't even be able to detect the previous mistakes), then a proper alternative needs to be discovered before abandoning the old method.

What do you mean? You don't have a conception of an alternative method of learning about humanity than scientific psychology studies?

You can't even do scientific psychology studies without having a different base.

Besides, the real problem is keeping proper critical thinking, which are more or less an impossible goal, but one important goal to strive for.

And that's what is horribly lacking when it comes to creationists. Their answer is already written in stone, no matter contradicting information and logical consequences such assumptions has with already established facts.

Baloney. Look at the Dawkin's tweet I posted. He's a conspiracy theorist. There are dozens of different ways in which people can not care about critical thinking, can keep some illogical belief in opposition to established facts. That's ordinary for any ideologue or political partisan.

The main reason people single out creationism is because it is an easy "win" for their own beliefs. People who oppose the religious worldview in many different ways cherry pick the most blatantly, provably wrong beliefs and let them stand in for the whole. It is in itself ducking the demands of critical thinking.

The idea that creationists are some special brand of stupid is little better than propaganda.

You're asking pre-adolescents to teach themselves historical analysis. Without any concept...

No I'm not.

We don't usually have philosophy classes for young kids where we expect them to debate morality and the meaning of life, etc. The only reason we have history classes that try to teach a message or a narrative is because we have severe misconceptions about history.

"Scientism" can only cause damage through a misapprehension of the capacities of science in terms of ways and means.

That, or technological apotheosis in the hands of the state.

Yes.

You mean you aren't opposed to them? But you've stated that you are, in so many words.

I am so that's not what I meant.

I get the feeling that you see "scientism" as so dangerous that religious fundamentalism is necessary today to counteract it. That's silly.

No, it's not needed to counteract it. But the fact that it does counteract it to some extent softens its badness.

I would compare this thread on the whole to a more conservative forum heaping derision on a democratic politician who was believed in veganism and on the agricultural committee or something. It's less of a serious consideration of the intellectual quality of the person than an easy target for scorn.

What if through science the people are changed? Would the humanities in their current form not become irrelevant?

We're being turned into robots or something?

[Montmorency]

We don't usually have philosophy classes for young kids where we expect them to debate morality and the meaning of life, etc. The only reason we have history classes that try to teach a message or a narrative is because we have severe misconceptions about history.

Such as? Take the narrative as incidental; do you believe children shouldn't at least be taught some basic chronology? To say that they should learn independently is no more than an endorsement of homeschooling -are the narratives emanating from that preferable?

We're being turned into robots or something?

Perhaps effectively. You can be sure that it is a solid goal for certain Western states - unless they are more incompetent than we imagine - and the means to achieve it are becoming available.

You don't have a conception of an alternative method of learning about humanity than scientific psychology studies?

Neuroscience.

The idea that creationists are some special brand of stupid is little better than propaganda.

People who oppose the religious worldview in many different ways cherry pick the most blatantly, provably wrong beliefs and let them stand in for the whole. It is in itself ducking the demands of critical thinking.

Note that creationism is a central belief among those who hold it, generally, and so colors all other beliefs.

You haven't really demonstrated convincingly why creationism should be considered no worse than, say, the more venial illogic of heightened visceral response while walking past a - any - black man on a lonely street.

Come to think of it, you haven't convincingly demonstrated that certain narratives permeate the public school system as a whole - is 'unhealthy' reverence for science really more common than jingoism and religious fervor? - or that they are actually harmful. With either of the examples in the previous line, unthinking obedience and credulity is a given. From there, it's merely a matter of personal preference...

An analogy: The misuse of military force can be harmful. Wrapping oneself in one's country's flag and appealing to respect for those serving in the armed forces in order to bolster one's cause is not misuse of military force. Looking to religious fervor as a counterbalance to respect for science would, on the other hand, serve to engender the latter case...

[Fragony]

Do you know who also disliked a personal preference, gawd it't everywhere all around us, just waiting

[Kralizec]

Science is for studying the physical and natural world. The humanities are the study of people. In science its often very difficult to find something out, but when you find it out you can show it objectively.

I see absolutely no reason to place the origin of man outside the purview of science. If "the humanities" try to monopolise that question they're wrong, and if they try to replace scientific theory with a pre-conceived notion of a divine creator ripped straight out of the bible (sometimes disguised as "intelligent design") that the'yre even wronger.

Priests are recognized as people who have special insight through some trait of theirs or through intensive study, so people take their word for it. Today science takes that role for many people.

The words and views of priests have no value beyond their job description; i.e. catering for the supposed souls of their flock.

They're not equivalent roles. Science is not a religion surrogate, and religion should not be treated as an equal - not because I dislike religion, but because they're apples and oranges. Creationism has no place in science classes or science textbooks. If you want to have a seperate course for religious studies where kids will learn that according to a 2,000 year old book people were conjured up out of thin air, fine. But be honest and make it clear that creationism isn't science instead of trying to pass it as something that it's not.

Science is an inappropriate tool for studying the humanities, but it has so much prestige in our time because of the technology it has created, and because people imagine that it overthrew religion (not true). So you have:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_racism

And the counterreaction in our own century has been bad as well--behaviorism, blank slate theory. You think we are past that and that modern psychology (of the kind that tries to answer humanities questions) is better?

Science has prestige because it has given us meaningful progress. It's given me medicine, electricity, the internet and other stuff. Organised religion has never given me anything and it means nothing to me. I'll tolerate the religionists as long as they keep to themselves and keep themselves occupied with their "spiritual wellbeing" or their place in the hypothetical afterlife, neither wich bothers me. Biology is a science which holds evolution as the prevailing theory, and if the creationists don't approve then they can quite frankly go to hell.

Creationism in school books is mostly harmless because in general it's an insignificant area, comparable to astronomy.

Astronomy is a legitimate science. Astrology would be a better comparison because that's nonsense, too.

If you do actually mean astronomy and mean that teaching creationist nonsense is harmless because it would still be less than 1% of the curriculum, then I still disagree. Saying that a literary interpretation of the bible is an equally valid way of explaing the origin of man would be comproming the integrity of science textbooks.

Besides the argument cuts both ways - creationists shouldn't whine about evolution being tought in schools because it's only a small part of the curriculum.

[Ironside]

What do you mean? You don't have a conception of an alternative method of learning about humanity than scientific psychology studies?

You can't even do scientific psychology studies without having a different base.

I'm not sure what you're getting at. The psychology books have more than scientific psychology studies, even if it's part of the data gathering. Science is to gather as much data as possible, verify or discard it and draw conclusions. There's scientific fields where there's only interpretations of the limited data (where most is wrong), say like history.
The place where science is really useful is where it breaks preconceptions. This doesn't make sense at first or even second glance, but it's how the world works.

Is it scientific to tell stories? Yes, if it's verified that it does the purpose that you intent it'll do.

Baloney. Look at the Dawkin's tweet I posted. He's a conspiracy theorist. There are dozens of different ways in which people can not care about critical thinking, can keep some illogical belief in opposition to established facts. That's ordinary for any ideologue or political partisan.

And that was my point. Yet learning about critical thinking is still a vast improvement over the old "the authority is 100% correct, always". Which are what the creationists are doing.

The main reason people single out creationism is because it is an easy "win" for their own beliefs. People who oppose the religious worldview in many different ways cherry pick the most blatantly, provably wrong beliefs and let them stand in for the whole. It is in itself ducking the demands of critical thinking.

The idea that creationists are some special brand of stupid is little better than propaganda.

Special brand of stupid? Perhaps not. Dangerous brand of stupid, due to moderatly successful attempts of spreading their policy and viewpoint on science? Now we're getting somewhere.

Does to school sometimes teach things wrong? Yes. It has to teach something, so it has to trust the current authorities on the subject. They can be wrong. The thing with critical thinking is that you can with new information easily accept that some of that was indeed wrong.

And about the cherry picking. Why exactly should you allow the most blatantly, provably wrong beliefs to stand uncontested? Compare it to a scientific theory, allowing it to stand critically flawed is a mockery, so due to how things work (no human got unlimited time to throughly analyse everything to find the small hidden gems that might hide in a huge pile), the proposer needs to revise his work until it's decent. If it's without any obvious flaws, it's certainly worth further consideration.

To use an example from another thread. If the soul enters at conception, then God is having a very large amount of souls of unborn children (possibly a majority of the total souls). Since God created man, he deliberatly set up this system. So it needs to have a purpose, in particular since souls are important. This pupose needs also to be coherant with previous information about God, to be functional theory. I sincerly doubt there is one, but if there's one, I'll be very interested to read it though.

Does this prove or say anything about God or souls? No, and even less about Jesus, but it's not convincing and it's not my duty to do your job of giving a credible theory, I'm just there to judge your conclusions.

[Fragony]

'And that was my point. Yet learning about critical thinking is still a vast improvement over the old "the authority is 100% correct, always". Which are what the creationists are doing.'

^- that, take a pike sideways ad rectum if you don't agree

[Ronin]

says it all really.

[Papewaio]

The prestige of science and the false authority that results from it is a bigger problem than fundamentalists denying things so they feel happier in their faith.

Science is about questions. It is curiosity, it is marveling and wondering about the world around us. It is about figuring it how things work.

The most important thing my Physics professors instilled in us students was to question Why? That included authority figures, which annoyed to no end the lecturers in the humanities subjects we had to take.

Prestige of science... I think most of it for most mortals lies in its applications and that is engineering and pharmacy to name a few of the technologists.

It is not an act of false authority to make a bridge that stands.

[gaelic cowboy]

what worries me more is that this man is a doctor and thinks evolution is a lie.

this would be the same evolution that you need to understand in order to end up with the medical advances we have today.

[Rhyfelwyr]

I wonder how many senators say they accept the theory of evolution, and yet don't know the first thing about it.

[gaelic cowboy]

I wonder how many senators say they accept the theory of evolution, and yet don't know the first thing about it.

well that would be just like "religious" senators who don't seem to be really all that christian when you examine it.

As I said already I worry more about how he can claim to be a doctor and pull this craic with a straight face.

[CBR]

I wonder how many senators say they accept the theory of evolution, and yet don't know the first thing about it.

Since evolution is mainstream science, and has been for a very long time, why should people have to know much about it to accept it?

How many senators say they accept that Earth orbits the Sun, and yet don't know much about gravity and planetary orbits?

[Rhyfelwyr]

Since evolution is mainstream science, and has been for a very long time, why should people have to know much about it to accept it?

How many senators say they accept that Earth orbits the Sun, and yet don't know much about gravity and planetary orbits?

Exactly. Most of us are ignorant, Ken Ham knows more about the theory of evolution than Joe Blogg, who is Joe to call him stupid?

[CBR]

Ken Ham and his creationism goes against mainstream science. Joe does not need to do much research before Joe can find Ken Ham being utterly debunked.

[Rhyfelwyr]

I don't agree with Ken Ham, I've just saying he could run rings round the average person in an evolution debate.

The average person can't even point out France on a map.

[HoreTore]

I don't agree with Ken Ham, I've just saying he could run rings round the average person in an evolution debate.

The average person can't even point out France on a map.

Eh, what?

What the creationists have demonstrated(and how on earth did you conclude that this guy didn't just accept creationism because his pastor or whatever told him so?), is that none of them knows anything whatsoever about evolution.

Their "facts" are just a bunch of misconceptions, outright lies and ignorance. If you believe creationism, then you have by default demonstrated that you have zero knowledge of evolution.

Creationists often win debates with sane people(evolutionists) though. Not because their arguments are good, but because they tell lies that completely stuns a normal person, which makes the already pro-creationist audience think dem dar proffessurs dunt know anything. That, plus dishonest empty rethoric.

[CBR]

I don't agree with Ken Ham, I've just saying he could run rings round the average person in an evolution debate.

Yes, true. Which is why having politicians spreading pseudoscience is a bad thing; some voters trusts their politicians so much that they actually believe in the nonsense!

Let me end by quoting Senator James Inhofe talking about his book on the global warming hoax (yada yada):

Well actually the Genesis 8:22 that I use in there is that ‘as long as the earth remains there will be seed time and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer, day and night,’ my point is, God’s still up there. The arrogance of people to think that we, human beings, would be able to change what He is doing in the climate is to me outrageous.

...

[Ronin]

I don't agree with Ken Ham, I've just saying he could run rings round the average person in an evolution debate.

Debate abilities (which include underhanded tactics of blocking logic argument) do not equal to being right

[Beskar]

The average person can't even point out France on a map.

*points to France on the map*

[rvg]

*points to France on the map*

That's India.

[Papewaio]

I prefer looking at The map of Tasmania. Particularly the wetlands.

[Beskar]

That's India.

Typical bad American geography.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=li11ZQqZHQM (contains a couple of swearwords)

[Furunculus]

In my experience the people who really care about religious non-evolutionists etc are those who don't realize how dumb most "pro-science" politicians are. Between "skeptic" and credulous/utopian I'll take "skeptic".

I am a big fan of Goulds NOMA, even if I am irreligious. People who tend to use science as the be all end all are generally 20 year old white suburbanites who use the words science and belief interchangeably/

100% brothers!

[Sasaki Kojiro]

Note that creationism is a central belief among those who hold it, generally, and so colors all other beliefs.

So does atheism/secularism. So does progressivism, conservatism, environmentalism, and libertarianism. People who can be described by these "isms" very frequently have provably wrong beliefs that are part of their supporting framework. There's nothing special about religion in that regard. Religion is only special in that regard to people who are ideologically on the side of science/secularism. Religious people do the same thing--"so are descended from an ape on your mothers side or your fathers side?" etc. Picking out creationism is the intellectual equivalent of that.

Neuroscience.

What's it good for besides medicine?

They're not equivalent roles. Science is not a religion surrogate, and religion should not be treated as an equal-not because I dislike religion, but because they're apples and oranges.

Yes, science isn't a religion surrogate. It shouldn't be treated as such. But people do. Go back and read the higg's boson thread and see how giddy people were.

And actually you are doing the apples to oranges comparison here. You can't just look at the places where people use religion to infringe on science's territory and criticize religion, you should look at where people use science to infringe on religion/humanities--as in the case of utilitarianism. Who would you rather have in congress, someone who follows Bentham or someone who follows the Bible?

Organised religion has never given me anything

You sure about that?

Astronomy is a legitimate science. Astrology would be a better comparison because that's nonsense, too.

If you do actually mean astronomy and mean that teaching creationist nonsense is harmless because it would still be less than 1% of the curriculum, then I still disagree.

No, I mean they are insignificant because the subject is insignificant. Knowledge about quasars and the size of the universe doesn't do anything but satisfy our curiosity.

The only reason the truth about where we came from is important is so that we don't believe bogus misleading stories about it. The teaching of evolution has a very poor track record in that regard--just go listen to people talking about evolution and gender roles.

'll tolerate the religionists as long as they keep to themselves and keep themselves occupied with their "spiritual wellbeing" or their place in the hypothetical afterlife, neither wich bothers me. Biology is a science which holds evolution as the prevailing theory, and if the creationists don't approve then they can quite frankly go to hell.

Why should I respect your contempt for creationists?

This seems like a typical result to overvaluing science to me. Unwarranted contempt for those who reject parts of it.

Science is to gather as much data as possible, verify or discard it and draw conclusions.
...
The place where science is really useful is where it breaks preconceptions. This doesn't make sense at first or even second glance, but it's how the world works.

You can't gather data on some things. But you can believe you are, believe it's verified, and believe you are breaking preconceptions. Especially if you really want to do that. Laughable conclusions are very very common in psychology.

You really don't have a conception of an alternative method to science for studying humanity?

And that was my point. Yet learning about critical thinking is still a vast improvement over the old "the authority is 100% correct, always". Which are what the creationists are doing.

Why do you think they are doing that? What a strange idea.

They believe what makes them feel good, or more confidant, or more secure in holding together a worldview, or something like that. Watch the guy in Ronin's video. You really think he's going "the authority is always correct, always"?

You've never met someone who says "the scientific consensus!" or "studies show!" when they don't know much about it? Are you seriously picking out creationism as something that makes appeals to authority?

Special brand of stupid? Perhaps not. Dangerous brand of stupid, due to moderatly successful attempts of spreading their policy and viewpoint on science? Now we're getting somewhere.

What's dangerous about it? "Critical thinking" one sentence, hyperbole the next.

And about the cherry picking. Why exactly should you allow the most blatantly, provably wrong beliefs to stand uncontested?

You should you treat provably wrong beliefs as worse than obviously wrong beliefs? Why should we care about how blatantly wrong something is more than we care about how bad it is that someone is wrong about it? And usually the most important things aren't provable, they are about values.

It's blatantly, provably wrong that knocking on wood doesn't do anything. But superstitions like that are usually trivial.

[Papewaio]

It is fine if someone wishes to tap wood to stop bad luck. They can have whatever self belief they want.

However when they start demanding that it be taught in health education that tappin wood is a cure all particular for the sins of a wood knocking up a young lass then one needs to draw a line.

Similarly when other fairy tales are taught that contradict medicine.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

There was a famous case involving autistic kids. Sometimes they won't communicate. So a guy invented a kind of computer typewriter deal and found that if a teachers aid held onto the autistic kids shirtsleeve lightly to steady their hand, they could type out messages, coherent messages. This became a big thing, there was funding for lots of the devices and lots of aids, a whole institute was set up. Many many parents believed they were talking to their kids...that their kids were telling them they loved them, for the first time. Only as it turned out, it only worked because of the instructors hand on the sleeve--a kind of unconscious feedback loop between her and the kid. The **** hit the fan when some "kids" started accusing their parents of molesting them. People got fired, some dads had to move out of their houses, reputations were ruined. Then they figured out it had all been pseudo-science.

Now maybe you'll say "that wasn't science. It turned out to be inaccurate". That's a very convenient definition.

If you couldn't sit down and think of a dozen cases like this given some time, you need to go read up.

The particular contempt some people have for creationists is ideological prejudice masquerading as enlightenment.

[Ironside]

You can't gather data on some things. But you can believe you are, believe it's verified, and believe you are breaking preconceptions. Especially if you really want to do that. Laughable conclusions are very very common in psychology.

You really don't have a conception of an alternative method to science for studying humanity?

So there's matters where there are no such things as experience? Making it impossible to study it in any way? Brilliant, dear sir, brilliant.

Sure most matters in social science have no complete answer, but even density answers (aka most people react like this) is an answer. Even conflicting data is an answer. An educated guess is generally better than a random guess.

Science is to gather the available data (and determine it's accuracy) and be prepared not to draw any premature conclusions from it. Since everybody have premature conclusions it's a far from perfect method and that the data is often incomplete doesn't help either.
And that's why I have problems seeing an alternative method. I call every method based on building the theory up from it's data, science. The common method of making up the theory first and then see if the data fits, is only scientific when you can admit that you was wrong. Humans hate that. But every method has that flaw.

Why do you think they are doing that? What a strange idea.

They believe what makes them feel good, or more confidant, or more secure in holding together a worldview, or something like that. Watch the guy in Ronin's video. You really think he's going "the authority is always correct, always"?

You've never met someone who says "the scientific consensus!" or "studies show!" when they don't know much about it? Are you seriously picking out creationism as something that makes appeals to authority?

The authority in that case is that interpretation of the Bible. Since it's considered by default correct, everything else is built on that. Yes, people are prone to falling to authorities, so the best option is making sure to make people understand that those authorities are fallable, and that those authorities that exist are the best possible at that point.

What's dangerous about it? "Critical thinking" one sentence, hyperbole the next.

You gave the answer yourself.

They believe what makes them feel good, or more confidant, or more secure in holding together a worldview

I threaten that with evolution. It's a very big mental threat. This threat cannot be eliminated without spreading your worldview and suppress the threating worldview.

It this consisting with the actions taken? Yes, that's why they focus so much on school education for example.

More general, dogmatic views are usually bad for progress and having an evolutionary framework (both it's benefits and flaws) is an amazing tool to understand things in a lot more fields than biology.

There's plenty of beliefs that doesn't have that problem, so it's one of the main reasons on why creationism is treated differently

You should you treat provably wrong beliefs as worse than obviously wrong beliefs? Why should we care about how blatantly wrong something is more than we care about how bad it is that someone is wrong about it? And usually the most important things aren't provable, they are about values.

It's blatantly, provably wrong that knocking on wood doesn't do anything. But superstitions like that are usually trivial.

Fair enough, harmless and trivial might not be needed to be contested (I usually don't unless it's painfully contradictive), but when it stops being that it's another matter.

And if you're going to talk about values, then talk about them. Do not drag in something else to try to strenghten the claims from a book where you're cherry picking and ignoring most of the values expressed in it anyway.

[Kralizec]

"Neuroscience" (monty)
What's it good for besides medicine?

Not a lot I suppose. What is religion good for outside giving people emotional comfort etc?

Neurologists aren't trying to tell churches what they must preach or what to put in their books. It would be nice if the churches had the same attitude towards science.

Of course there are people like Dawkins who never miss an opportunity to bash religion for its doctrines. I don't approve, I'd rather just live and let live. But Dawkins and others do this as a reaction to what they see as religious activism, a much more widespread phenomenon.

Yes, science isn't a religion surrogate. It shouldn't be treated as such. But people do. Go back and read the higg's boson thread and see how giddy people were.

And actually you are doing the apples to oranges comparison here. You can't just look at the places where people use religion to infringe on science's territory and criticize religion, you should look at where people use science to infringe on religion/humanities--as in the case of utilitarianism. Who would you rather have in congress, someone who follows Bentham or someone who follows the Bible?

That people were excited about the Higgs Boson means nothing. They're not treating it as a religion surrogate, that's your projection.

If we discount bigotry against religion, the only places where religion is being infringed on is areas that religion has wrongly claimed for their own. Biology textbooks are a case in point.

Bentham had a lot of interesting ideas; some good ones and some less than good. I'd rather have him as a representative than, say, G.W. Bush.

You sure about that?

Pretty sure.

There were/are lot's of adherents to organised religion who made great contributions to humanity and by extension, my welfare. But that's not quite the same thing, is it?

No, I mean they are insignificant because the subject is insignificant. Knowledge about quasars and the size of the universe doesn't do anything but satisfy our curiosity.

The only reason the truth about where we came from is important is so that we don't believe bogus misleading stories about it. The teaching of evolution has a very poor track record in that regard--just go listen to people talking about evolution and gender roles.

That a particular batch of knowledge isn't relevant for most people's lives is no excuse to teach absolute nonsense in its stead.

Nor is the fact that a lot of people don't understand the concepts very well an excuse to replace it.

I agree with the bolded part. If someone rejects the scientific theory of evolution because he believes in the Biblical origin story, fine, as long as we're clear that this belief is grounded in faith and nothing else. What I object to is:
- creationists trying to block evolution from school textbooks. Their motivation is that they don't want children to learn things which contradict the bible, even if it's the scientific consensus. I have no respect for their motivation in this regard. As said, I don't object to (non-mandatory) religious classes where they learn that religion holds a different view. Which brings me to the next point:
- intelligent design advocates who insist on recognition that their poorly disguised biblical viewpoint is scientifically just as sound as the theory of evolution

Why should I respect your contempt for creationists?

You don't need to. I woulnd't say that I despise creationists; I think that the belief itself is silly but I recognise that they can otherwise be likable people.

It's when they try to censor scientific views and try to influence what can and can't be tought to children that contempt comes into play.

There was a famous case involving autistic kids. Sometimes they won't communicate. So a guy invented a kind of computer typewriter deal and found that if a teachers aid held onto the autistic kids shirtsleeve lightly to steady their hand, they could type out messages, coherent messages. This became a big thing, there was funding for lots of the devices and lots of aids, a whole institute was set up. Many many parents believed they were talking to their kids...that their kids were telling them they loved them, for the first time. Only as it turned out, it only worked because of the instructors hand on the sleeve--a kind of unconscious feedback loop between her and the kid. The **** hit the fan when some "kids" started accusing their parents of molesting them. People got fired, some dads had to move out of their houses, reputations were ruined. Then they figured out it had all been pseudo-science.

Now maybe you'll say "that wasn't science. It turned out to be inaccurate". That's a very convenient definition.

If you couldn't sit down and think of a dozen cases like this given some time, you need to go read up.

The particular contempt some people have for creationists is ideological prejudice masquerading as enlightenment.

I'd like to see a link, because it sounds like an interesting story.

I'll take your word for it that this really happened, but even so, big deal. Professional misconduct happens in every sector.

Fraud does happen in science; especially the social sciences seem vulnerable to this. And sometimes scientists who act in good faith make mistakes or wrong assumptions. But here's the crux: nobody ever seriously argued that the scientific consensus is always right, or cast in stone.

I'm not even sure what you're trying to prove here, from the looks of it you're just mud throwing at the scientific community.

[CBR]

I'd like to see a link, because it sounds like an interesting story.

Must be this one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facilitated_communication

More to do with the public and courts accepting something before there ever was a scientific consensus. And for stuff like that there are obviously several examples.