Forum:Which logical fallacy is this?

The logical fallacy I'm trying to identify is the one that underpins pretty much all science denial. Basically, its the idea that because there is pressure to form a consensus, scientific consensus is meaningless, and not only that, but the factual data behind the consensus must all be a lie concocted by the scientists who are trying to pressure others into consensus. It underpins everything from global warming denial to vaccines cause autism, flat earth to creationism, homeopathy to walking talking murdering GMOs.

An example would go a little something like this: Sure, we have data to prove gravity, mostly us not all floating off into space, and other planets exhibiting the same behavior in a mathematically predictable way. But there is pressure to conform to the scientific consensus isn't there? There are a small contingent of professionals who think the data is wrong or biased, aren't there? We weigh less in some places than others, namely the moon, don't we? Some scientists opposed it at first before they were pressured into consensus, didn't they? Therefore, gravity is wrong, Isaac Newton was an ideologist hack, and my opinion trumps all your facts.

I hesitate to call this argumentum ad populum because the argument is basically the inverse, declaring the majority consensus wrong. And its not straight up denial either, because they aren't declaring the phenomenon itself wrong, simply the theory that explains it. I guess it *could* be argument from authority, but the person making the argument usually has no authority to argue from, so I think I can rule that out too. But its pretty obviously a fallacy of some sort. -Seankurth (talk) 02:36, 12 January 2015 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure this is even an informal logical fallacy, but "simply" an unholy marriage of (a variant of) anti-intellectualism and conspiracy theory. The assumption is basically that the majority opinion among scientists can't be a consensus reached through debate and reason, but must have involved coercion/conspiracy, and therefore scientific consensus is wrong. ScepticWombat (talk) 09:08, 12 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Galileo gambit is what you're looking for. 31.210.187.253 (talk) 15:18, 12 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Not a fallacy. It's technically reasonable to suggest that sociological factors may drive a consensus of any sort.  Where it falls apart is that they refuse to engage with further information that is more than available enough.  If the complaint existed in isolation of rampant ignorance, it would be okay.
 * Much like it would be okay to insist that science can always be overturned by new evidence, as a strictly hypothetical response to the insistence of accepting the basic facts of global warming, if that behavior were isolated from the fact that there are important policy implications of the facts as they stand, and that the position they are taking (Global Warming is wrong) isn't what that articulation entails. It's a false distancing on "principle".  Ikanreed (talk) 15:35, 12 January 2015 (UTC)