The manufacture of artificial consensuses is becoming the prerogative of an emerging datocracy

Journal or Publishing Institution: Journal of Biological Physics and Chemistry

Study: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/279961384_Cross_D_Truth_belief_and_consensus_the_manufacture_of_artificial_consensuses_is_becoming_the_prerogative_of_an_emerging_datocracy_Journal_of_Biological_Physics_and_Chemistry_15_2015_19-31_doi_10402401

Author(s): Cross, D.

Article Type: Journal Publication

Record ID: 417

Abstract: Truth, belief and consensus: The manufacture of artificial consensuses is becoming the prerogative of an emerging Datocracy ” Being in a minority, even in a minority of one, did not make you mad. There was truth and there was untruth, and if you clung to the truth even against the whole world, you were not mad. ” (George Orwell, 1984) Douglas Cross Abstract In this article I examine the roles of truth, belief and opinion in the establishment of scientific consensus, using contemporary case studies of confrontations between those with experience of major events and those who merely possess expertise. founded on officially endorsed belief. Politically acceptable truth in science is becoming governed by the manufacture of artificial consensuses, pervading much of modern science. This has led to a fundamental conflict between science, politics and commercial vested interests. Now, machine intelligences are being developed designed to identify scientifically valid consensuses and from these assess the ‘truthfulness’ of statements published on Internet web sites. They will then impose lower ‘truth scores’ on those sites judged to be unreliable. A short-lived human elite,is emerging, but will rapidly be replaced as self-generated algorithms of which we know nothing emerge, The new Datocracy will be replaced by a fully machine-regulated arbiter of scientific truth. I warn that the concept is founded on a critical inherent flaw-the underlying presumption that wisdom can be gained in the absence of a built in sense of humour and a failure to identify logical questions that are impenetrable to scientific methodology. I argue that most scientific committees are designed primarily to construct biased and self-protecting consensuses resistant to challenge, and call for the replacement of the current increasingly fragile and irrelevant standard toxicological paradigm but one that protects established consensuses favouring vested interests, but is indifferent to an emerging range of crucial biochemicophysical relationships of which we are only just becoming aware. Knowledge engineering in the search for truth.

Citation: Cross, D., 2015. Truth, belief and consensus: The manufacture of artificial consensuses is becoming the prerogative of an emerging datocracy. Journal of Biological Physics and Chemistry, 15, 19-31.