All scientific theories are limited in scope, power, and application, being mere approximations of reality. That’s why consensus is vital.
There are two important and common words that, when used scientifically, have a very different meaning than how we use them in everyday language: theory and consensus. These two words, in our commonplace usage, have meanings that imply a large degree of uncertainty, and enormous amounts of wiggle-room for how the reality surrounding these ideas could turn out to be vastly different from our current conceptions. A theory is merely a thought that anyone can put forward: a supposition, a wild guess, or even baseless speculation all count as “theories” in our daily conversations, where strongly validated ideas like gravitation and completely erroneous ones, like the Earth is flat, both get described with the same word: theory.
While most of us can recognize the difference between a scientific and non-scientific use of the word theory, this line is even blurrier when it comes to the notion of a consensus. Consensus, when we use it commonly, simply means, “most people believe this thing,” but that doesn’t necessarily mean such a thing is correct or true. Consensus could apply just as equally to statements like “the Earth is warming” as it could to those like “ninjas are deadlier…
