Robert J. Marks, host of the Mind Matters podcast, recently put out an article at Newsmax discussing “scientific consensus,” and how that term has been used to bully dissenting scientific viewpoints and even establish political and social policy. Marks writes,

Consensus was used as a reason to stifle debate during the COVID crisis. Facebook and YouTube saw opposition to the government narrative as disinformation. Posts against consensus were censored and users were banned.

Pre-Musk Twitter had a policy concerning tweets about climate change: “Misleading advertisements on #Twitter that contradict the scientific consensus on #climatechange are prohibited, in line with its inappropriate content policy.”

The word pairing “scientific consensus” is a destructive science-stifling oxymoron.

-Robert J. Marks, Consensus Doesn’t Equal Science | Newsmax.com

Real scientific discovery happens within a culture of free speech and open dialogue, according to Marks. Without the freedom to question authority and “consensus,” many of history’s greatest scientific breakthroughs would have never been established.