Science too is human and can suffer from that groupthink, from that collective delusion

The problem in that article is that science is presented as not being part of the game. Scientists are human, and belief in the theory are assets for people who devoted their life to a paradigm. This article describe well the disease, in a psychological way. The theory of groupthink by Benabou uses a more econometric way, but the result is similar.

If you see how the theories of Oliver Gordon de Aberdeen, then Ignaz Semmelweis, than Pasteur were opposed despite huge evidences, despite great statistics by Semmelweis, you will be convinced that all that article describes well, as Thomas Kuhn explains well, applies to scientists.

The way Wegener observation was rejected with violence, up to the point that student in the 50s were punished if referring to him, shows that it happened recently. The real story of quasi-scientists, of footnote conduction shows no improvement.

Now in your article it is clear that as said in that article, some scientific evidence are denied in the article, as much as fan of Bush stayed convinced of WMD despite all evidence. I will not say which and will let observers gather scientific evidences that oppose the refuted models, the cherry picked data, the tweaked results… I don't care much as another similar denied reality is current solving the former real or mythical problem.

I don’t say what is that latest zone of denied evidences breaking the long lasting siege, but ask Elforsk, Bill Gates, Statoil, Steven Chu.

People in economic circles have less incentive to believe in myth as are believers in a theory, on a political vision, on an old or new religion, or in all of those… They believe in their pocket, at least a little more than scientist whose funding depends on peer-opinion, which explains the “Mutual assured Delusion” that Roland Benabou describes well in his groupthink papers.

Key to the MAD is that peoples depend on others who will destroy them if they leak the real facts, while realism came from selfish capacity to benefit from others delusion.

Not so easy to sort, because there are many kind of “assets” and “dependencies to the group opinion”, even in the shark pool of business. And with subsidies and popular beliefs, you can make business even on fake facts.

Depressing ? Ex-ante freedom to dissent is the only solution to that undecidable problem. This is the conclusion of Roland Benabou work.