No Witnesses

We see the failure to understand this play out in conspiracy explanations of the scientific consensus regarding global climate change and the conviction among creationists that they are under attack by a pack of satanic evolutionist scientists.Anyone who has done even introductory science or who has worked or studied alongside scientists understands the glee with which a scientist greets the opportunity to prove another scientist wrong.We find ourselves at our 21st century crossroads of Technology Love and Science Rejection in large part because most people never saw a lab or lecture hall full of bright-eyed, feral grad students working to prove somebody (or everybody) wrong about something (or everything).This is both one of the great engines of scientific discovery and a continual quality check on past work. Folks who think climate scientists are engaged in a global conspiracy to secure grant funding fail to understand that upsetting the apple cart with sound, replicable findings contrary to a scientific consensus will attract far more funding than a confirming result, however sound.Of course, we could say that creationists think scientists would engage in a global conspiracy to say things they don't really believe in order to serve selfish or other ideological interests because that's what they do.But that would be ungenerous.

Indeed--why strain out a gnat after swallowing a camel?Edited by Omnivorous, : No reason given.