I'm sure you've seen something similar to this crap from deniers before...
Consensus is irrelevant in science. There are plenty of examples in history where everyone agreed and everyone was wrong.
G'head and read the blog post. See if even one of these supposedly bountiful examples is given. Woops. Looks like witless Watts "forgot" to provide them. Scare quotes, because it's not a mistake. Know why? There are few recent historical examples available to Watts from the last couple centuries, a time when science had matured enough to propel civilization into modernity. Most examples are very nearly prehistoric in a sense (at least as far as science is concerned, anyway), because they're all from way back when people still wrongfully believed the Earth was flat, or the center of the solar system and/or universe, and so on.
And frontier debate within an area of research does not count, because it rarely alters core findings (i.e.: the consensus opinion within the field). When Einstein established relativity, it did not change the fact that Newton's equations would still get us to other worlds, and, if you jump off a cliff, you go DOWN. Equally, when Wilson and Dawkins go at it, Darwin's basic principles are still right in every important way.
Why would anyone judge today's established scientific truths based on the fact that most Greeks were wrong about stellar parallax over two millenia ago, Watts? Or that countless people in medieval times believed disease was due to miasma, or some divine punishment? Why would anyone care, and how do errors of antiquity incriminate the very system that was designed to eliminate them? Seriously, what is your brainless problem here, Watts?
Take a moment, dear reader, to consider just how far your empty denier head has to be shoved up your impacted posterior to make the statement that consensus is irrelevant in science. It's so ignorant it boggles the mind, and it's truly indicative of how desperate deniers have become.
To believe it, we have to dismiss the scientific consensus behind gravity, evolution, the standard model of particle physics, HIV causing AIDS, and on and on and on.
And Anthony "Boss Troll" Watts is not the only one sharting this nonsense all over the Internet...
"IMO, the main point of all this is that [t]he concept of a ‘consensus’ surrounding climate change is becoming increasingly meaningless."
-Judith Curry
"There is no such thing as a “scientific consensus”, except in a very limited sense."
-Christopher Moncton (no, I'm not including his crappy, aristocratic title)
"The talk show hosts against these 97 to 98% of all these scientists, and the talk show host is winning."
-Rush Limbaugh (sentence-building difficulties all his)
"In ancient times, the notion of a flat Earth was the scientific consensus, and it was only a minority who dared question this belief. We are among today's scientists who are skeptical about the so-called consensus on climate change."
-Richard McNider and John Christy
Hey, at least McNider and Christy fessed up to one of the only stupid, anachronistic examples available to them, unlike Watts.
The consensus has spread well beyond the one field of climate science. Let's all of us laugh at and make fun of these consensus-denying dinosaurs, while we draft up some meaningful GHG-reducing policies.
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