Consensus, Credibility and Truth
Ordinary gentleman Will asks an important question: “If an overwhelming number of trained specialists in a particular field agree on one issue, shouldn’t we just take their word for it? And if not, why not?” Will asks this in the contexts of climatology and economics, but the question can be asked of any field in which we find consensus among experts.
My answer: it’s reasonable to uphold consensus in a particular field as accurate. Indeed, we’d get very little done in society if we refused to take the word of people who should know what they’re talking about. However, consensus among experts can be transformed into a grand unquestionable orthodoxy, and it’s at this level that I urge an ear of caution and an eye of suspicion.
Consensus is something arrived at through a process of group thought and consideration of evidence, but as Jean-François Lyotard argued, consensus is only a particular state of discussion, not its end. Its end, in my view, is a better understanding of truth.
Consensus implies the existence of other views and, indeed, dissent. As consensus does not equal truth, truth demands that others get a hearing and that our ears remain open to the voice of dissent or what Lyotard called paralogy, the innovation of new concepts that emerge in thought oppositional to the established ways of thinking.
Of course, keeping an open ear doesn’t mean we refuse to act when consensus urges a course of action. Knowledge is never absolute, and prudence dictates that we act without perfect knowledge.
Kyle Cupp is a freelance writer and editor with a background in literature, language, and philosophy.
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In a complex and sinful world, the consensus view can be not only wrong, it can be very wrong. “You shall not follow the crowd in doing evil. Neither shall you go astray in judgment, by agreeing with the majority opinion, apart from the truth.” (Ex 23:2).
Without out going on at dissertation length, a couple things.
Presently, the preferred paradigm for explaining phenomenon is a general theory. Items that conflict with the general theory are explained away as actually occurring, sometimes invisibly. When something conflicts with the general theory, our whole understanding of the universe is being challenged. This puts a huge premium on heresy hunters.
The other paradigm is that our knowledge is locally constrained with any broader applicability being analogical. Agreement over generalized phenomenon is very slow. On the other hand, debate over the local phenomenon tends to be fairly musted, with agreement coming pretty early. Where the heavy fighting tends to be involved is in the applicability of the analogies.
There does tend to be some fluidity between the two camps, but I believe the former is dominant. It is reflected in our discourse.
M.Z., you’re clearly channeling Thomas Kuhn here, and when I read Kyle’s post I immediately thought of him too. (Partly because I just read Structure of Scientific Revolutions with my juniors.) You’re right: consensus in a community results from a shared paradigm, but the paradigm could be limited. I am persuaded that a good deal of contemporary Catholic theology is similarly limited by a dominant (read: academic) paradigm, and its limitation is that it’s insufficiently conversant with the Christian spiritual tradition. A new paradigm emerges, Kuhn argues, as a kind of new gestalt (way of seeing the whole as different from the sum of its parts). What’s pushing a new gestalt in the Church, among other things, is an educated laity, a greater sense of globalization, conversation with other faith traditions, and others. But it’s also being pushed by deeper immersion in the spiritual traditions of the Church itself.
I do recall a time when, right or wrong, we moved on the consensus of experts in a given field, when actions seemed to be merited. Today if any dissent can be discovered anywhere in the mix, it seems to cause an immediate paralysis. I am left wondering why this dynamic has changed.