text: Bill Hooper - As a trained scientist working in academia and industry for more than 30 years, my experience tells me that 97% consensus among any group of scientists is a remarkably high number.
  If you spent time attending conferences in any scientific discipline, you would see that the ideas and models scientists propose are rigorously debated by colleagues who are trained to conduct critical evaluations. As a group, they're focused on revealing how things work - that's the joy of science. 
  Here’s a hypothetical for you, Bill. Say you have heart disease, and a heart attack is in your near future unless you accept your doctor’s recommendation to begin treatment with an approved drug that is known to be effective; so effective that 97% of cardiologists recommend it. Your position would dictate that the 97% of cardiologists are ignoring the 3% who don’t recommend the therapy.  Therefore, you would refuse that therapy. But denial of the empirical evidence won’t prevent your heart attack.