Consensus Until It Isn't

For most of the last decade or so we have been told it was the consensus of medical and psychiatric professionals that gender transitioning drugs and surgeries were the best treatment for minors with gender dysphoria.

Ignore the fact that this conclusion was in conflict with thousands of years of human experience.

Or the consensus of medical and mental health professionals for decades until groups like the American Medical Association (AMA) and the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS) endorsed gender transition surgeries a decade ago.

This week the consensus supporting gender transitioning began to evaporate as the ASPS was followed by the AMA in stating that doctors should delay gender-related surgeries for minors citing insufficient evidence that benefits outweigh the risks.

I would expect over the next few months we will see more "experts" reverse course on the issue of gender transition surgeries for minors until the consensus is 180 degrees different than it was last week.

This change in thinking may also begin to encompass gender-related surgeries for those who are not minors.

What changed?

Is it just a coincidence that a New York jury recently awarded $2 million to a woman for a medical malpractice claim involving a plastic surgeon and psychiatrist. The mother of the girl testified she had opposed the surgery but relented under pressure when she was told her daughter might commit suicide if the surgery was not performed.

If a New York jury can reach that verdict what do you think the chances are that there are a lot of other potential lawsuits out there in other parts of the country?

How did we get here in the first place?

It starts with someone with an agenda. Someone else follows that lead without doing much thinking or research on their own. Nobody wants to be an outlier or late to the party. Consensus is then formed within a self-fulfilling loop.

It is consensus until it isn't.

Many times the consensus is unwound as more and people start looking at facts and data and begin to understand that "the king has no clothes".

We hear a lot about consensus these days.

We hear it all the time on climate change.

"The consensus of scientists is that the planet is warming due to carbon emissions"

We heard it a lot during Covid.

"The consensus is that Covid was natural in origin and did not come from a lab in China".

We even heard it in the 2020 election.

"The consensus is that there was absolutely no fraud in the election."

In my mind, consensus is often a code word to keep people from looking at the facts and data t and coming to an independent or contrary conclusion on their own.

In many respects, consensus today is a word used to describe a political assessment rather than a scientific and factual conclusion.

One of the most popular blog posts I have ever written was titled "Consensus Is Not Science" back in 2017

In that post I wrote about the the so-called "consensus" of scientists that climate change was settled science.

When it comes to settled science, there is no doubt that we have climate change. It changes every hour, every day and every year. It has changed over the centuries.

The question is not whether it is changing but whether man is impacting that change and, even if that is the case, whether we can even do anything about it?

Whenever we hear about the "science" of human related climate change there is nothing "settled" about it. That is why we hear that this view is supported by the "consensus" of scientists.

Of course, "consensus" is not the same as facts. And consensus is not a scientific fact. A scientific fact is the law of gravity, the boiling point of water or the distance to the moon. 

Prior to the 15th century, the consensus of scientists was that the earth was the center of the universe.

In the 18th century, the consensus of medical scientists was that blood letting was the best method to cure illness.

As recently as 25 years ago the consensus was that peptic ulcers were caused by stress. We now know it is caused by bacteria.

I could go on and on. In fact, in most cases like these, the consensus of scientists was proven wrong by one person who did not believe the consensus and proved it wrong.

You have consensus until it isn't.

The late Michael Crichton said it best when talking about consensus and science.

Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. 

Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you’re being had.

Let’s be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus.

Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. 

In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus.

There is no such thing as consensus science. If it’s consensus, it isn’t science. If it’s science, it isn’t consensus. Period.

Keep all of this in mind whenever you hear the word consensus.

It is meant to silence debate, diverse views and advance a political point of view.

Consensus is not science.

We have seen just how true that is again this week.