There are any number of fundamental issues of science, health, and politics in which a master narrative, what they call “consensus”, is dominant. New knowledge never emerges from consensus, it’s antithetical to scientific inquiry. Controversy is the driver of new knowledge and so it is sometimes necessary, in the interest of pursuing objective truth, to take a controversial and contrary position that challenges the orthodox view. You do so at your peril and will often find yourself in a position of being a minority of one in a unanimous majority, a very difficult stance to maintain. And there is a predictable pattern to the way in which the orthodoxy reacts to being challenged; ridicule, marginalization, vague threats of imprisonment for “deniers” (from, in the case of AGW, such luminaries as Bill Nye the Science Guy). From my reading of history this has always been the case. But by all means continue to seek truth, and speak it, but don’t forget to duck. And keep in mind that true believers of any stripe are rarely amenable to rational disputation
