The quote¹ actually says

• science != consensus
• politics == consensus
• science == ∃ X such that ((X == investigator) && (X == “correct”); where (”correct” == “results are verifiable in reference to the real world”))

The problem is that skepticism does not reign throughout much of science. Rather, dogmatism reigns. Anyone who dissents is silenced. If the environment we have today existed, Einstein would not have been able to publish, he upset too many careers. But back then the science journals were not as tightly controlled as they are now, and it was more possible then for a radical idea to get published.

It is then asked, “what does it mean to say in reference to the real world.”² A valid question. What is meant here is that results have to bear out, taking relativity for an example again, we can see that the data fits better than Newtonian physics. However, Global Warming doesn’t account for a great deal of the data out there. Relativity fits the real world. Global warming is questionable at best.

“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.” – Michael Crichton¹