Editing Scientific consensus (section)

== Change of consensus over time ==
{{See also|Sociology of the history of science}}
There are many philosophical and historical theories as to how scientific consensus changes over time. Because the history of scientific change is extremely complicated, and because there is a tendency to project "winners" and "losers" onto the past in relation to the ''current'' scientific consensus, it is very difficult to come up with accurate and rigorous models for scientific change.<ref name="Pickering 1993">{{Cite book | last = Pickering| first= Andrew| author-link=Andrew Pickering |title = The Mangle of Practice | year = 1995 |publisher = Chicago University Press | location = IL | isbn = 978-0-226-66802-4 }}</ref> This is made exceedingly difficult also in part because each of the various branches of science functions in somewhat different ways with different forms of evidence and experimental approaches.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://www.nap.edu/read/1864/chapter/4|title="Responsible Science: Ensuring the Integrity of the Research Process: Volume I" |website= NAP.edu|year=1992 |doi=10.17226/1864 |pmid=25121265 |isbn=978-0-309-04731-9 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Kerr|first1=John R.|last2=Wilson|first2=Marc Stewart|date=2018-07-06|title=Changes in perceived scientific consensus shift beliefs about climate change and GM food safety|journal=PLOS ONE|language=en|volume=13|issue=7|pages=e0200295|doi=10.1371/journal.pone.0200295|issn=1932-6203|pmc=6034897|pmid=29979762|bibcode=2018PLoSO..1300295K|doi-access=free}}</ref>

Most models of scientific change rely on new data produced by scientific [[experiment]]. [[Karl Popper]] proposed that since no amount of experiments could ever ''prove'' a scientific theory, but a single experiment could ''disprove'' one, science should be based on [[falsifiability|falsification]].<ref name="PopperLSR">{{Cite book | last = Popper| first= Karl Raimund| author-link=Karl Popper |title = The Logic of Scientific Discovery | year = 1934 | edition = 2002| publisher = Routledge Classics | location = New York | isbn = 978-0-415-27844-7 }} Originally published in German as {{cite book |title=Logik der Forschung: zur Erkenntnistheorie der modenen Naturwissenschaft |series=Schriften zur Wissenschaftlichen Weltauffassung |year=1935 |publisher=Springer | location=Vienna |oclc=220936200}}</ref> Whilst this forms a logical theory for science, it is in a sense "timeless" and does not necessarily reflect a view on how science should progress over time.

Among the most influential challengers of this approach was [[Thomas Kuhn]], who argued instead that experimental [[data]] always provide some data which cannot fit completely into a theory, and that falsification alone did not result in scientific change or an undermining of scientific consensus. He proposed that scientific consensus worked in the form of "[[paradigm]]s", which were interconnected theories and underlying assumptions about the nature of the theory itself which connected various researchers in a given field. Kuhn argued that only after the accumulation of many "significant" anomalies would scientific consensus enter a period of "crisis". At this point, new theories would be sought out, and eventually one paradigm would triumph over the old one – a series of [[paradigm shift]]s rather than a linear progression towards truth. Kuhn's model also emphasized more clearly the social and personal aspects of theory change, demonstrating through historical examples that scientific consensus was never truly a matter of pure logic or pure facts.<ref name="KuhnSSR">{{Cite book | last = Kuhn| first= Thomas S. |title=The Structure of Scientific Revolutions |year = 1962 | edition = 1996| publisher = University of Chicago Press, Chicago| isbn = 978-0-226-45808-3 | title-link= The Structure of Scientific Revolutions }}</ref> However, these periods of 'normal' and 'crisis' science are not mutually exclusive. Research shows that these are different modes of practice, more than different historical periods.<ref name="Shwed and Bearman 2010" />