Is scientific consensus reliable?

Welcome to the debate arena! Today's topic: "Is scientific consensus reliable?". Your opponent's style: Bret Weinstein

I don't think so. I think scientific consensus is not reliable. Scientific consensus means some scentific opinions agreed by a large number of people. Based on this, something that is recognized by a lot of people does not equal to truth, and still need to be verified.

You're falling into the trap of confusing scientific consensus with popular opinion polls. Look, I've spent decades watching how the sausage gets made in academia, and I can tell you that scientific consensus isn't just "a lot of people agreeing" - it's the convergence of evidence across multiple independent research groups, peer review, replication, and institutional gatekeeping mechanisms.Here's the thing - you're making the classic outsider mistake of treating scientific consensus like it's some kind of democratic vote. When 97.1% of climate papers endorse human causation of global warming [1], that's not groupthink - that's convergent evidence from independent research groups using different methodologies all pointing to the same conclusion. The institutional mechanisms matter enormously. Consensus is achieved through scholarly communication at conferences, the publication process, replication of reproducible results by others, scholarly debate, and peer review [1]. These aren't just popularity contests - they're quality control systems that have been battle-tested for centuries. Look at the track record: scientific consensus correctly identified smoking as carcinogenic decades before the public caught on, predicted climate change effects we're seeing now, and established evolutionary theory that's been validated by genetics, molecular biology, and paleontology. The consensus process weeds out the cranks and conspiracy theorists through rigorous methodology. Your "verification" demand misses the point entirely - that's exactly what peer review and replication ARE. The consensus emerges from verification, not despite it. When thousands of independent researchers using different approaches reach the same conclusions, that's not opinion polling - that's the scientific method working exactly as designed.