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Few things concern me more than the growing trend of ideology superseding established facts (which I largely trace back nearly 4 decades to the campaign strategy and resulting election of Ronald Reagan). I find it worrisome because it is the cause of, or prevents the solution to (or reduction of), many of the greatest threats facing humanity.
And I want to be clear that neither those leaning politically right or left have a monopoly on engaging in this. Each side of the aisle has beliefs they cling to in spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. (In my list below, I've tried to include an even number of traditionally left and right sacred cows.)
While few things can ever be absolutely proven in science, there does exist a scientific consensus on some questions that was achieved through decades of well-designed large-sample studies, replication of results, meta-analysis, field study, etc.
Some examples of questions for which a scientific consensus has been achieved are:
- Man-made climate change exists and is worsening.
- Vaccines do not cause autism (and are the single most effective tool ever invented in the fight against disease).
- Glyphosate is one of, if not the, safest herbicides.
- The earth is an oblate spheroid.
- GMO's are safe (far safer than the previous popular method of crop improvement, used since the 50's, of irradiating seeds and hoping some of the random mutations are beneficial). Among their many benefits for humanity will be a large reduction in the number of poor people (and especially children) suffering from blindness and death resulting from malnutrition (specifically Vitamin A deficiency) through the widespread distribution of Golden Rice. In 2012 the World Health Organization reported that about 250 million preschool children are affected by VAD, and that providing those children with vitamin A could prevent about a third of all under-five deaths, which amounts to up to 2.7 million children.
- All living things evolved from simpler lifeforms over billions of years.
Of course any and all questions in science are subject to change due to the discovery of new information (that is why science is the most effective tool we have for discovering truth, it is continuously self-correcting) however the way a greater and greater consensus is achieved is through many scientists attempting and failing to prove the consensus wrong, thus it has a greater and greater likelihood of being correct.
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Footnote: I disagree on his glyphosate statement but that's another issue entirely.
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