§ The Countess of Marasked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether "consensus of scientific opinion" is an accurate or reliable indicator of scientific truth and whether, in the absence of incontrovertible evidence as to the cause of BSE, any such consensus is an adequate substitute.
Lord LucasScientific theories cannot be proved to be true. Science is all about accumulating evidence to test the adequacy of theories, to refine theories or to disprove theories. All that can be said about any theory (even the most widely accepted) is how well it explains all the currently available evidence, and how good it is at predicting events. A subsidiary but important concept is that of Occam's razor, that a theory should involve no more than the minimum number of assertions.
The strength or weakness of a theory essentially relates to the extent to which it explains the facts, not to the number of people who adhere to that theory. Nevertheless, in the absence of an absolute arbiter, a general consensus of views of those scientists and experts who have studied the subject and have weighed up the evidence for and against the various theories is an important factor for the Government to take into account in determining their policies.