But see, in most cases, it’s not the public at large that undoes problematic consensus. Folk with actual authority, not people with little to no experience in the specialization-- that does include scientists and engineers who have little experience in something that isn’t their specialty who appear on these lists disputing consensus science.
If anything, this is the opposite of argument from authority. “I’m a scientist, and this is science, and I must therefore be right” should be rejected as an argument. But it’s very different if a majority of folk who have extensive expertise are saying the earth is warming due to CO2 output by humans, or chemical X causes cancer. Nonspecialists can’t argue from authority not because authority isn’t a good argument by itself, but because compared to specialists, they have none.
The fact that we’ve moved on from older views in science demonstrates this.
Amateurs can certainly contribute, at least in natural history, but in supporting roles which often seem unexciting to cranks. After all, if you’re not overturning an accepted paradigm, you can’t be doing real science, right?
Personally, I just think that’s sad. Imagine finding or helping describe a fossil which incrementally increases our understanding of paleontology and evolution. That would be amazing. Small contribution? Sure. But that’s still pretty keen to me.
But if you think there’s no controversy in evolution, or that everything is settled, I submit that you should look into it. The broad strokes are pretty well settled, but bioinformatics and evo-devo offer new tools to explore the unknown.
Cranks instead waste everyone’s time and energy with Paley’s long-refuted arguments.
Imagine how useful they could be if they stopped being involved in losing court cases or circulating lists of scientists (non-biologists) who dispute the modern synthesis and did some real work.
(I don’t mean to pick on them, but I’m more familiar with their efforts than the physics crankery.)
