What "Consensus"?

[Butterfly]

What "Consensus"?
Intersex News
By Sophia Siedlberg
Friday, January 23, 2009



http://intersexnews.blogspot.com/2009/01/what-consensus.html


Anyone who has followed the environmental debates of the past ten years will probably have noticed the use of the term "consensus statement" to give various documents an air of authority, in this case with the intent to clarify what is known about the impact of human
activity on the environment, but also to send a message to critics of the current dogma that their dissent will not be tolerated. It is this second line of reasoning that has proven problematic. Personally I am not a "climate skeptic" but I do often sense that some environmentalists are going too far when trying to stamp out dissent.  This is because some aspects of the criticism will inevitably involve legitimate scientific questions.