Ontology:P201
- pronounced [P] Scientific consensus test [rating]
- pronounced [P] Scientific consensus test [rating]
- field value
- test passed
- "Scientific" [pass]
- test failed
- "Scientific" [fail]
Characteristics in draft[edit]
Properties[edit]
- item type
- label (en)
- pronounced [P] Scientific consensus test [rating]
- alias (en)
- Is this description or argument scientifically accurate?
- "Scientific accuracy test" (communication question 01)
- QID references
- pronounced [P] rating [rating]
- color swatch references
- pronounced [P] rating [rating]
- Property data type
- item
- instance of
- communication rating level
Usage notes[edit]
- This test applies to works that make claims about material reality which if made by somebody knowledgeable in the sciences would likely be falsifiable. This is a test pertaining to falsifiability.
- If there is no scientific consensus on the topic or no way to scientifically observe some particular process at the current time, this question is not applicable.
- This test does not apply to historical materialism per se due to the lack of any solid scientific consensus on the topics of time and causality; these topics may receive a consensus admitted into mainstream science eventually, but for now they lie in the realm of plural hypotheses that cannot be treated as fact. For the purposes of claims within the scope of Marxism, other tests such as the historical accuracy test will be more immediately appropriate.
- The topic of climate change is a complicated one given its connection to the topics of causality and the future. In a few cases, other tests will become more important than this test and render it moot. At other times, it will be valid to fail a work purely for climate change denial.
- Remember: communication rating levels do not give a definitive account of whether a piece of information is true, only whether it is worth listening to for ordinary people.
Scientific consensus examples[edit]
The following types of statements about the real world may be considered scientific misinformation and used to fail a work:
- Denying speciation processes that lead to separate Families of Animals (macroevolution)
- Claiming that viruses are made up.
- Claiming that there is solid evidence of extraterrestrial lifeforms.
- Claiming that it is physically impossible for human beings to ever change the earth's average temperature, or that a world with a greater average temperature is desirable.
- etc.
This is not an exhaustive list.