John Beatty (University of British Columbia)
One might think that aiming for consensus in a group would be aiming for the agreement of all, or at least a high proportion of its members. But that's not what "consensus" means in the case of the IPCC, nor in many other decision-making settings where it's less about everyone agreeing, and more about no one openly objecting. Which are very different. Whatever the merits of such "no-objection" procedures they do have one serious epistemic downside: they leave much unsaid about the viewpoints of the individual group members - like the extent to which they agree or disagree.
