hey guys so I want to clarify some what I think to be really important points about
what scientific consensus is and why we should be taking it much more seriously
than we do as a society so full disclosure I am a scientist so there's inherent bias there
but it also means that I have an insider's take on what science actually is and what it takes
to reach scientific consensus so understand something scientists work tirelessly to try
to answer scientific questions I'm a natural scientist I work in the ocean mostly I ask
questions about how the ecosystems in the ocean function so that we can better understand how
to conserve these systems I spend hundreds of hours maybe even thousands of hours per study
that I that I produce that I then publish and I share with other professionals in my discipline
and they read these studies and they produce their own studies and we try to come together
and understand general principles about how the world works in my case the ocean but there of
course are various scientific disciplines and the point here is that you have individuals
exerting incredible amounts of effort to try to understand the answers to the questions they're
asking in their discipline when you have many many independent scientists conduct many independent
studies we're talking in some cases careers worth of studies that points to similar answers this
can drive consensus on the scientific community meaning scientists in that discipline generally
agree that a specific phenomenon is real it is happening and we understand the underlying
mechanisms in this way this is incredibly rare I don't think people appreciate just how rare
scientific consensus is and the reason it is so rare is that many many patterns again I'll talk
about nature because I'm a natural scientists many many patterns in nature exhibit tremendous
variability so there's a lot of variability among data points when you're conducting a
study and there are off there's often lots of variability among studies so it is incredibly
rare that many many many studies point to the same conclusion and so when this happens and it
yields a consensus in the scientific community scientists take it incredibly seriously do we
question it of course we're always conducting more science to answer more questions than to attempt
to test how robust this pattern of concern that we have decided seems to be real is we're constantly
testing it so is it the Word of God absolutely not but it is very important to take very seriously
anything that the scientific community again a ton of independent researchers collecting tons
of independent pieces of evidence to try to answer questions when this community says something seems
to be real we should really be taking it seriously as a society this has zero political Drive there
is no hidden agenda scientific consensus is not frivolous it is not handed out willy-nilly it is
in a painstaking process to reach we're talking generations decades maybe more than that of the
brightest minds in the world some of the brightest minds in the world working toward answers and then
when they come to a consensus we really need to be thinking about that in implementing the
conclusions that those scientists that that discipline has drawn so that we can guide the
progress of our civilization appropriately this has nothing to do with political affiliation
religion background economic status race none of that stuff science is meant to serve everyone and
when scientific consensus is reached society as a whole Lobby to paying close attention to that
the future of our species depends on it thank you for watching help me spread information and
not misinformation help me fight misinformation help me spread information about science how it
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