Exercises: The Consensus Enforcement Machine

Difficulty Guide: ⭐ Foundational | ⭐⭐ Intermediate | ⭐⭐⭐ Challenging | ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Advanced/Research

Part A: Conceptual Understanding ⭐

A.1. Name the five consensus enforcement mechanisms. For each, explain its legitimate quality-control function AND its consensus-enforcement function.

A.2. What is the "chilling effect"? Why is it potentially more harmful than direct enforcement?

A.3. Explain the concept of "artificial consensus." How does it differ from genuine consensus?

A.4. Why does the chapter argue that consensus enforcement is a collective action problem rather than a courage problem?

A.5. How does the Asch conformity experiment scale from line lengths to professional consensus?

Part B: Applied Analysis ⭐⭐

B.1. Apply the quality control vs. paradigm policing diagnostic table to a recent debate in your field. Which features are present?

B.2. Map the five enforcement mechanisms in your field. Which is strongest? Which is weakest?

B.3. The Shechtman quasicrystal case illustrates all five mechanisms. Trace each one through the case with specific examples.

B.4. Identify a topic in your field that is "career-risky" to research. What makes it risky? What enforcement mechanisms would activate if you pursued it?

B.5. Compare the chilling effect in your field to the chilling effect in a different field. What structural features differ?

Part C: Research Design Challenges ⭐⭐–⭐⭐⭐

C.1. Design a peer review reform for your field that would reduce consensus enforcement while maintaining quality control.

C.2. Propose a "red team" structure for your institution: how would it be staffed, funded, and protected from the enforcement mechanisms it's designed to challenge?

Part D: Synthesis & Critical Thinking ⭐⭐⭐

D.1. The chapter argues the enforcement is "distributed and unconscious." Can distributed, unconscious enforcement be reformed? Or does reform require making it centralized and conscious?

D.2. Apply all fourteen failure modes to a single case of your choosing. Which combination was most lethal?

D.3. Is there a healthy level of consensus enforcement? If all enforcement were removed, would the field improve or descend into chaos?

Part M: Mixed Practice (Interleaved) ⭐⭐–⭐⭐⭐

M.1. (From Ch.2) Authority cascade installs wrong ideas. Consensus enforcement maintains them. Trace both through the peptic ulcer case.

M.2. (From Ch.13) Einstellung creates internal blindness. Consensus enforcement creates external barriers. How do these compound?

M.3. (From Ch.11) Is consensus enforcement a form of incentive misalignment? Or is it a separate mechanism?

M.4. (Integration) Update your Epistemic Audit with the consensus enforcement diagnostic.

Part E: Research & Extension ⭐⭐⭐⭐

E.1. Read an account of a scientific dissenter (Shechtman, Marshall, Wegener, or another). Analyze their experience using the five enforcement mechanisms.

E.2. Survey colleagues (anonymously if possible) about self-censorship in your field. What topics do they avoid? What cost calculation do they describe?

Solutions

Selected solutions in appendices/answers-to-selected.md.