John Hawks on consensus building

I feel so fortunate to have been engaged in this problem, because it says so much about the process of science. Science is always a process where progress requires an opinionated minority to recruit support among peers who are not specialists in the same area. Such a minority may forge consensus through consistent and repeated demonstration of facts. More likely -- as in the case of modern human origins, where new evidence was often equivocal -- a motivated minority will apply a broader range of rhetorical strategies. Over the years, I saw people pull out every trick in the book to persuade the uncommitted to their point of view.