ANOTHER BIT OF SCIENTIFIC CONSENSUS BITES THE DUST

Science often corrects itself. THAT'S NOT A DEFECT: IT'S HOW SCIENCE WORKS.

Science is largely made up of provisional theories and hypotheses which work well until new evidence makes them outmoded.

Here's another instance of it in the news:

Conventional scientific wisdom, based on genetic "distances" measured by molecular geneticists, had placed the divergence between chimps and humans some five to six million years ago.

Orangutans are thought to have parted company with our ancestors 13 to 14 million years ago.

"If the new discovery is in the gorilla lineage, then this will definitely substantially push back the split time between apes and humans," Halie-Selassie at Kent State told AFP.

In this case, it's not a big deal politically.

WHY?! Well, the Left isn't proposing a huge tax increase or major new regulations for industry based on the fossil record of hominid dentition - as they are with AGW HYPOTHESES.

The key thing here is the fact that the 5.5 million years hominid split hypotheses were the OVERWHELMING CONSENSUS of anthropologists. Just like the AGW hypotheses.

This is another example which proves that...

• Consensus among scientists is not scientific proof.

And installing a political regime of high taxes and stifling regulations - which just happen to dovetail perfectly with the Left's LONGTIME political goals - would be a disaster for the world's economy, and therefore a huge mistake.