Comment by adastra22
15 hours ago
The Library almost certainly existed. It is the destruction (by deliberate fire) that is probably myth.
15 hours ago
The Library almost certainly existed. It is the destruction (by deliberate fire) that is probably myth.
Its destruction multiple times (in sieges and uncontrolled fires) is current historical consensus.
The sieges and fires you are referring to were hundreds of years before the supposed destruction at the hands of Christian mobs (e.g. as depicted in the movie Agora or in Sagan’s Cosmos). The latter is unsupported.
Historical consensus? So the non scientific view? Science is not consensus based.
If you want to know what the science says on some topic, you have exactly two valid options:
1. Become an expert in said topic, reading the broad literature, becoming familiar with points and counterpoints, figuring out how research actually works in the field by contributing some papers of your own, and forming your own personal informed opinion on the preponderance of the evidence.
2. Look at the experts' consensus on said topic
Of course, you have other options. A popular one is to adopt the view of one expert in the field that you happen to like, who may or may not accept the consensus view - but this is far more arbitrary than 1 or 2.
3 replies →
Of course science is consensus based ... consensus is a fundamental part of the scientific process, which is conducted by a community of scientists. Consensus is the end result of attempts at reproducibility and falsification, of the ongoing process by which scientists challenge the claims and purported findings of other scientists. Without it, all you have are assertions from which people can pick and choose based on their biases (as we see, for instance, with people who deny climate or vaccine science by cherrypicking claims).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_consensus
https://skepticalscience.com/explainer-scientific-consensus....
https://tomhopper.me/2011/11/02/scientific-consensus/
And even if you reject consensus as being essential to science, calling the consensus view "the non scientific view" is obviously mistaken, a basic error in logic.
This is all well understood by working scientists so I'm not going to debate it or comment on it further.