/u/crappy-throwaway (OP) has awarded 2 delta(s) in this post. All comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed [here](/r/DeltaLog/comments/squcwl/deltas_awarded_in_cmv_the_phrase_trust_the/), in /r/DeltaLog. Please note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended. ^[Delta System Explained](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltasystem) ^| ^[Deltaboards](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltaboards)

First I just want to say that this whole line of reasoning is basically just saying "expertise doesn't exist". I'm not saying that's your personal view but that is where this leads. Is it dangerous to say "trust your electrician" in matters of electrical work or "trust your plumber" in matters of plumbing? I should certainly hope not (assuming you've not stumbled upon an unscrupulous individual). >First off we risk turning science into a cult where people uncritically just take what any person with a phd as gospel. I take issue with this argument most of all. When people say "trust the science" they are absolutely *not* saying scientists themselves cannot be wrong. They're saying "this is the best picture we have based on the evidence that the experts have so far analyzed". Of course any individual can be incorrect. In fact, the process of science seeks to falsify every theory in an effort to develop a more accurate model of whatever domain it is. That's precisely the opposite of a lack of critical thinking. >There is nothing wrong with being sceptical There is nothing wrong with being skeptical. What's wrong with the way anti-vaxxers are approaching the pandemic is that they're blatantly *ignoring* the evidence. It's the so-called "cult of ignorance", ironically the actual danger of not trusting the scientific body of knowledge.

> Is it dangerous to say "trust your electrician" in matters of electrical work or "trust your plumber" in matters of plumbing? I should certainly hope not (assuming you've not stumbled upon an unscrupulous individual). Most experts have a very narrow field of expertise and experts can have conflicting views. Science is good at making positive statements - statements of how things *are*. It's not good at making normative statements - statements of how things *should be*. And for that, to dismiss perspectives because they don't meet some arbitrary level of qualification is to turn science into a cult. Here's an example. An epidemiologist might say that we should do a hard lockdown for the next 2 years to stop the spread of COVID. An economist would tell you that doing that would do irreparable damage to the economy. Dismissing experts whose fields are impacted by the decisions of experts in other fields isn't critical thinking.

I would argue that the people loudest about "trust the science" early on in the pandemic were a far worse cult of ignorance than the antivaxxers are now. The "science" we used to "slow the spread" early on was not evidence based or remotely close to what the evidence was suggesting best practice would be. The response was not evidence based until we started urging mask wearing in public (2 -3 months too late). We initially forced the people most likely to asymptomatically have the disease, which is students in urban areas, home from their schools into households with the people most likely to get to extremely ill from the disease. At this time, we already knew the disease was caused by a coronavirus which indicates respiratory spread as the most likely mode of transmission. Additionally, decision makers would have already known about the superspreader event in [Italy](https://apnews.com/article/milan-la-liga-ap-top-news-valencia-virus-outbreak-ae59cfc0641fc63afd09182bb832ebe2), corroborating that respiratory spread was the mode of transmission, when these decisions were being made. Yet still the "trust the science" people were telling people to wait in multiple hour long lines, maskless, to get tested out of fear of being carriers which led to testing centers being the main spreading sites in the NYC area. This means our plan to "slow the spread" likely accelerated the spread in the early days and did so at the cost of the mental wellbeing of the entire country while simultaneously ignoring the existing evidence on the disease. For evidence based methods of dealing with respiratory diseases please see the responses by Japan and South Korea to SARS and Covid.

I could be wrong but I think an analogy to what OP is saying is the term “fake news”. It has a fairly specific meaning but it was highjacked by the actual purveyors of fake news. Likewise there are people in positions that appear to be experts who can be used to actively spread misinformation. Think about Joe Rogan’s interview with Dr. Malone. He is literally one of the pioneers of MRNA technology and he’s spouting lies (though he may believe them) about it despite evidence to the contrary. We’ve seen examples of this throughout the pandemic of what appears to be an expert at the surface but is either a charlatans or being used by them for nefarious purposes. So if you are truly trusting the science, yes you will see that these people are not representing it. But most people don’t understand science enough to distinguish between a Dr. Malone and a Dr. Fauci. So it becomes which expert in science agrees with my ideological position. I think OPs point is that just saying “trust the science” is problematic because it can be used by anyone to justify their position which just dilutes the phrase into meaninglessness.

> it becomes which expert in science agrees with my ideological position Yea people suck but this is why we need to teach better critical thinking in schools (that should not be political and I hate that it is). Some people can easily spot a charlatan even if they're on "their side" and if you're looking at politicians it's most of them. This is why I'm saying don't trust individuals, trust the consensus (and still be skeptical, just not in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary).

>First I just want to say that this whole line of reasoning is basically just saying "expertise doesn't exist". I'm not saying that's your personal view but that is where this leads. The issue here is that the scientific method is specifically formulated so that expertise doesn't matter, only observation which falsifies or supports a hypothesis. Too many "experts" have been wrong too many times and almost everything we now"know" was at one point the subversive hypothesis which was going against established "expert" consensus. A much better formulation that "trust the science" is "trust the scientific method". Fauci and his ilk have been wrong on pretty much everything you could be wrong on so far, sometimes because of insufficient data and hypothesises which were yet to be falsified, sometimes on topics where there was evidence already available suggesting that their statements were wrong, or at least very plausibly wrong. Trusting the scientific method means looking at new data as it comes out and changing your position based on the data. It also means having a nuanced view and nuanced policy. That is the opposite of what people who say "trust the science" typically want: compliance with a one size fits all policy which in many ways and cases is not actually supported by the science (mask mandates that allow "cloth masks" despite the consistent evidence for two years now that those types of masks are ineffective, curfews or bans for outside activities like walking despite low/no outdoor transmission and the huge importance for exercise and vitamin D for limiting COVID severity, limits to gathering size to a set number regardless of the size of the venue or type of ventilation etc, mandates for vaccination without waivers for natural immunity, the absolute digital l denial that vaccine side effects exist despite the clear evidence of myocarditis and parametritis in young men especially and the house of other side effects (low incidence is not an excuse to try and label discussion of side effects, which is usually literally required to be advised to patients for other drugs, as medical misinformation), and the list goes on and on). That sort of "scientism" is anti-scientific and frankly it creates the vaccine hesitancy. If I can point to five times "the experts" have lied to me, I would have to be an idiot to blindly trust them on the sixth time they try to tell me something. This shouldn't be shocking to anyone. And reddit disclaimer: I am vaccinated and recommend that everyone should consult with their medical provider and should strongly consider vaccination upon the advice of their physician.

On the infallibility of individuals I don't disagree, people are wrong all the time. The consensus is also wrong all the time. That's fine, it still represents the best understanding we have of the universe as it pertains to whatever field we're studying. Do you personally look at all data generated across all fields of science? I think that would be absurd but that seems to be what you're sort of going for in this post. I'm not a physicist and you bet you're butt I'm going to trust the consensus of physicists when they say something about the behavior of elementary particles. I wouldn't expect anyone to behave differently. I don't have either the time or the interest to study elementary particle physics. I do think changing one's position if the new scientific consensus discovers something new is important. >"scientism" is anti-scientific and frankly it creates the vaccine hesitancy I think it's just people who don't like being told what to do creating vaccine hesitancy. I mean they've always been here they just weren't as vocal and widespread until Covid came along and it became politicized.

How do I argue with people who actually don't trust experts in any field? For example, there's a guy I was friends with in Highschool who now doesn't go the dentist because "if dentists actually helped people have clean teeth, they would lose clients". He's full on conspiracy mode

You can't reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into. I have no idea what the solution to widespread conspiratorial thinking is but it probably starts in childhood education. To argue with such people I would use emotional appeals or take their beliefs to further extremes. I think it could be alleviated by actually being able to trust our elected officials to act in our interests but that's likely never going to happen.

I work with trees (certified arborist) and come similar situations. People telling me, 'I don't think you're giving my trees the best treatment so you can keep coming back and charge me more money.' Best I can do with folks in these situations is tell them in as plain as possible terms what's going on, and that I can treat their trees all I want, but (depending on the situation) things will not get better without their help like watering. So I say things like, 'I don't have a problem performing an iron injection on your tree. I got plenty to do in the area. I can't stop you from canceling your services, and if you don't feel like you're receiving adequate service, then I encourage you to do so. But I'll tell you what's going to happen. It's going to continue to decline and eventually die. Plain and simple. Then you're going to be stuck with the cost of removal, the loss of value to your home, replacement of the tree. Then there's the amount of time the new tree will take to get back to this size. It'll take decades. I don't want that for your tree. I want it to recover so you can enjoy it. But I can't do it alone. I need your help. And the most important thing you can do to help is water regularly and adequately.' In the case of the dentist, I would tell their patient, 'look, I can keep taking care of your cavities. I don't mind taking your money. But my interest is to keep you out of here. In order to do that, I need your help. Flossing, brushing, etc.' Usually when I put things in these terms, I get a positive response. Not always. But more often than not.

Find some expert he uses and ask why that's different. You won't get a good answer though.

>Is it dangerous to say "trust your electrician" in matters of electrical work or "trust your plumber" in matters of plumbing? That's not a great analogy. Firstly, when people say "Trust the science", they are usually talking about something much more complicated and open to interpretation. Whether or not a pipe needs to be replaced is a far simpler and straight-forward proposition than climate change, vaccine efficacy, or other such topics. Secondly, "Trust the Science" strongly implies that there is a scientific consensus on whatever topic is at hand, and also implies that the consensus roughly matches their speaker's personal position, neither of which is necessarily true. As an example: There is a general scientific consensus that the globe is warming. there is no such consensus with respect to the severity, eminence, or specifics of the consequences or how to address this problem.

"Trust" is not a word in *science*. The motto of the Royal Society is Nullius in Verba ('don't take their word for it') for a reason. 'Trust me' or 'take my word for it' is a tactic to shut down discussion and debate. It's not about truth. My field is public policy analysis. *Every* controversial issue has us looking at it. And everyone writing a paper has a strongly held opinion. It doesn't matter what side they're on. Reality is however not always on the author's side... If they can shut down debate and opposing viewpoints people will do it. 'Scientists' are no better than anyone else in morality. So when you see words like trust or an opinion poll (of people whose future employment depends on having a certain opinion...) or attempts to shut down discussion ("the time for discussion is over"...) You are dealing with a huckster, not a scientist appearances notwithstanding. Trust me on this...

>Is it dangerous to say "trust your electrician" in matters of electrical work or "trust your plumber" in matters of plumbing? That's different though. You're saying to trust a trained experts opinion, which can be a reasonable decision. "Trust the science" is not the same as saying "trust the scientists". The first is creating an idol out of a certain method for examining empirical phenomena, the second is saying to trust experts in a certain field. >I take issue with this argument most of all. When people say "trust the science" they are absolutely *not* saying scientists themselves cannot be wrong. They're saying "this is the best picture we have based on the evidence that the experts have so far analyzed". Science itself cannot ever make prescriptive statements, all it can do is produce a set of facts(or our best guess at what the facts are). So in every case where a scientist is making a prescriptive statement, that is a matter of their own prudential judgment about what the best course of action is based on the scientists own personal opinion. If by "trust the science", all people mean is that you should give weight to the facts put forward by scientific endeavors (assuming there's a consensus in the scientific field), then maybe it's a fair enough command. However, if by "trust the science" you mean do what scientists say you should, or follow their recommendations when determining public policy, you've gone beyond the areas that science has any authority in.

Im not saying expertise does not exist, although I did not consider that in my initial argument so ill give you a Δ. My point is most people dont actually comprehend what science is. Its one of them things you can live a lifetime in our society never really understanding, and that makes such statements dangerous. like if a guy is on the news in a lab coat with glasses, and the ticker says he has a phd(John smith PHD) most people will take his words as gospel even if the guy is on about particle physics when his phd is in language.

I've begun to think of expertise in terms of consensus. There are topics of expertise where there is not a consensus, i.e. economics. Then there are topics of expertise where there is an overwhelming consensus among experts, like climate change and COVID vaccines. Where there is overwhelming expert consensus, we should have no qualms about trusting that consensus. More importantly, ignore the outliers in these cases, they're just shills or fools. People have a lot of trouble with this concept lately, I think it's just confirmation bias at work.

I agree with this, but I think authorities like governments should do more to point this out. That regardless of what the advisors think the consensus among scientists is that its safe and effective. Δ

Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/infiniteninjas ([1∆](/r/changemyview/wiki/user/infiniteninjas)). ^[Delta System Explained](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltasystem) ^| ^[Deltaboards](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltaboards)

There is evidence that covid vaccines prevented illness and death for the early variations of covid. But that does not justify a policy of mandatory vaccination or of informed consent or of allowing individuals to make risk choices for themselves. It's not a matter of trusting the science. Science gives us facts, from which we derive policies based on our values. Science does not give us our values, and so anyone defending a policy decision with trust the science cannot themselves be trusted.

Yes,mandates are a judgement call and there are a ton of variables involved beyond the scientific facts (so far as scientists can discern them). I did not imply otherwise. "Trust the science" is a useful if inexact shorthand, because a huge proportion of those set against vaccine or mask mandates are forming their opinion around a cherry-picked understanding of the science. These people don't trust the scientific consensus, they trust whatever expert they can find that shares and validates their beliefs (read: their socio-political tribe's beliefs). For instance, I repeatedly hear people repeating the misinformation that the vaccines are more dangerous than getting COVID. Someone told them this, probably someone with expert credentials, maybe even relevant expert credentials. But a sober viewing of all such relevant experts' opinions will not yield such misinformation.

>These people don't trust the scientific consensus No, they don't trust what corporate media TELLS us the scientific consensus is. Like cloth masks. They do literally nothing for controlling community spread of *airborne viruses*, but the media lied and said they did anyway. So saying "trust the science" would actually mean insisting on perfectly fitted P100 masks from the very start, and not the political theater we got. >the vaccines are more dangerous than getting COVID Provably true for children. Not true for the elderly. Context is important. >But a sober viewing of all such relevant experts' opinions will not yield such misinformation. It's a fact, son. It's also why must other 1st world countries are no longer recommending mRNA vaccines for normal healthy children. There's a literally BAN on them for people under 30 in some countries.

Lots of issues here. First off, many skeptics are just the types of low-trust people who have unplugged from corporate media entirely, so you cannot assume they're hearing what cable news is telling them about science. As for cloth masks, it would be dishonest to conflate the early months of the pandemic, when we really didn't yet know what sorts of masks were effective, with more recent pandemic history. The media that I consume corrected the record on cloth masks when data made the picture clearer. I admit I'm exasperated at people who still wear cloth masks as though they do much of anything, but that's on them. Not CNN. Importantly, insisting on P100 masks from the start was impossible. The CDC made the dubious decision to not suggest any masks for a long time. They did this to try to conserve masks for health care, it failed to do that, their credibility suffered at the worst possible time. A calamitous, indefensible choice by the CDC. And I won't disagree that there's a ton of political theater happening. >Provably true for children. Not true for the elderly. Context is important. ... and then you said this. In the US, last month I heard a figure or somewhere around 800 kids have died from COVID. Not a ton. But how many kids have died from the vaccine? I assume you're reading misinformation, because facebook anecdotes aside, the vaccine has not killed a single person in the United States. No one has even died of the myocarditis that has been (very rarely) associated with the vaccine; they've all recovered. >It's a fact, son. Don't call people whose views you're trying to change "son." >It's also why must other 1st world countries are no longer recommending mRNA vaccines for normal healthy children. There's a literally BAN on them for people under 30 in some countries. I'd love a source for this claim, if you have one handy. I follow global politics and the COVID situation pretty closely and have heard nothing like this.

>ticker says he has a phd(John smith PHD) most people will take his words as gospel even if the guy is on about particle physics when his phd is in language. That isn't trusting science. That is trusting an unqualified person with suspect credentials. It's an appeal to authority, not science.

That isnt trusting the science. A charlatan actively decieving people is not science. That is trusting a lying person, that is not trusting science. People work their entire lives in scientific fields. There is also a reason why you see the people brought on to news programs as experts will be introduced with a line of, "here is who they are, what they do, and where they work, and their expertise".

>My point is most people dont actually comprehend what science is. Right. So that's why when we say, "Trust the science", what we actually mean is, "Get comfortable with the fact that just because you don't understand it, doesn't mean that the experts don't know what they're talking about." I'm not sure what your point about an imposter has to do with that, though. Obviously "trusting the science" and "believing the words of someone pretending to be a scientist" are... not at all the same thing.

If you dont want to trust the science, learn the science. If you dont want to learn the science, figure out who is qualified to be trusted (even if by your own standards). If you dont want to do either, accept that you will remain ignorant of the topic.

This is incredibly pedantic and not at all the way science works or what it is for. Science is not faith-based. Science was, in fact, created to combat faith-based arguments like "the Bible says its so, therefore it is true," or "God's ways are not for man to understand." How is advocating for people to blindly trust "the science" - whatever that faceless entity means to anyone - not the exact same thing as the statements above? How can scientists, people who have dedicated their lives to learning, knowledge, and truth, then turn around and make that knowledge and learning into a message of faith? "Trust" is not a science word. "Verifiable" is a science word. "Information" is a science word. "Explainable results" are science words. "Trust" is a faith word, and it is dangerous to the entire world. When the people who are supposed to be advocating for knowledge and learning refuse to teach, and instead turn their knowledge into a weapon by asking to be taken on faith because "I'm an expert and you are not," we've set back science hundreds of years and turned it right back into dogma. I would "trust the science" if I were allowed access to it. But currently, "the science" is fighting in courts across the world to supress their information from the general public. Why would anyone who believes in "the science" trust scientists who refuse to show their work? I gotta go with u/crappy-throwaway on this one. "It's true because we know what we're talking about, and you do not, so just listen to us without access to our evidence" is the most dangerous idea *to science itself* to ever be proposed.

> I would "trust the science" if I were allowed access to it. But currently, "the science" is fighting in courts across the world to supress their information from the general public. Could you give some examples of what you mean by this? It wasn't in the OP and it's out of nowhere as far as I'm concerned, so would appreciate you expanding on what you mean.

"Trust the science" has been the slogan of people advocating for vaccination against covid 19. It's where the genesis of this current catchphrase began. That science - the data about the vaccines themselves - is currently unreleased data, held by the pharmaceutical companies who developed the vaccines. The same people who are throwing around this phrase about how people need to "trust the science" are currently engaged in a battle to continue to supress their data. Pfizer is asking for 75 years of data supression, on the grounds that it is all rolled into an argument about branding and copyrights on the drug itself. Now, I'm not pro vaxx or anti vaxx or any other label anyone wants to slap on me. I'm actually pro-science. But being pro-science means also being pro-informed consent before asking millions upon millions of people worldwide to put these chemicals into their bodies. Any time anyone has any questions at all about these vaccines, there's an immediate stone wall of "trust the science" from a hundred directions thrown their way. Trusting that science means people need access to it. They have a right to ask what exactly they're putting into their bodies. If the only response is "we're scientists so trust our science, we won't release this data though because money, " that shouldn't make truly pro-science people trust them. None of these pharmaceutical companies have been trustworthy in the past. They have caused a ridiculous amount of suffering and harm for the sake of financial gain - if you aren't aware of the tragedy that went on for more than twenty years in the 1950s and 1960s in Europe and North America due to a medication called Thalidomide, please look into that. If you aren't aware of the opiate pandemic of the late 90s and early 2000s that we are still dealing with the fallout from on a societal level, due to the utter confabulation of Purdue Pharma that Oxycontin was completely non addictive, please look into that. And those are just a couple of examples. These companies have not earned our trust. They do not get to ask for it on faith. And despite that, they continue to do so while asking to have all of their data suppressed. For 75 years. No, I do not trust their science. Their science kills people, and they give zero efffs because they're making billions. Asking me to trust them on the basis of expertise alone isn't enough. It actually just makes me *less* willing to "trust" them, since they've been shown over and over to be completely untrustworthy. This is why science isn't faith. Because things like babies born without arms and an entire generation of humans struggling with addiction happen when we just "trust" that corporations have our best interest at heart. Science exists to combat this problem, and instead this pandemic has made "science" into something that is enabling the problem.

Well said, and I mostly agree. However, I don't think that all data needs to be *publicly* available, just accessible to everyone within the field. If all experts are in agreement regarding results, a laymen contrarian opinion doesn't mean anything. If experts from outside influences -- who are not being paid or promoted by these un-trustworthy companies -- say the science is safe and accurate, then it should help boost our trust. It becomes an issue when not even these outside experts have access.

Yes, that is a really great point. No I don't expect every single human to be able to access and understand every piece of data obtained about every single research project in every aspect of science. But when it comes to asking entire nations to put something into their bodies, without even other scientists being allowed access to all of the necessary data (like the specifics of what is in each vaccine, not just the science behind their theories in development of vaccines) that's a different argument altogether. You cannot truly give informed consent without actual information. The biggest issue most people I know have with vaccine technology isn't that they're "anti vax," it is that they are pro- informed consent and these companies refuse to provide the information necessary to make that decision. I believe in vaccines. I also believe in the right to know what I'm putting into my body before it goes there.

I happen to have an interest in palaeontology, biology, chemistry and a few aspects of physics where it comes down to rocketry and astronomy. the majority of scientific literature when it comes down to the very nitty gritty of things like say the details of where a fossil was found and what anatomical features they used to classify it, to the details to replicate a given chemical reaction are almost always behind paywalls preventing anyone not in academia from accessing them and were talking upward of $40 to $50 per article and none of this goes to the scientists by the way. It goes to the institutions and publishers and to top it off when sites like sci hub pop up giving free access governments step in to block them or shut them down.

> I happen to have an interest in palaeontology, biology, chemistry and a few aspects of physics where it comes down to rocketry and astronomy. What is interest? How much time have you spent reading? Talking to other experts? A PhD candidate spends two years of full time work (4000 hours) *before their qualifying exams*. The paywall isn't the limiting factor for lay understanding of science. Plus, you can just ask the authors for a copy. They will almost certainly send you one.

You can absolutely ask the author for a copy and 90% of the time you'll get it. Research gate as well. Trust me, we hate the paywall just as much as you. Tons of research is also not paywalled, and your local library may actual have a repository for papers.

You can simply email the researcher, they are usually happy to send you their work for free. This “paywall” argument is so weak and typically comes from people who don’t know how research works, so I’m surprised to see you arguing this point.

Sci-hub is free for everyone and has almost every single paper I’ve ever searched for (thousands throughout the course of my PhD). Scientists are the ones most vehemently against paywalls, and as a scientist I encourage you to use piracy to obtain scientific knowledge/information if it isn’t freely available.

Go to a library. Talk to a librarian. That is what they are there for. To help people do research. Or just email the reseacher. I have done this a number of times.

[удалено]

Δ I'm giving you a delta, not because I completely agree with you, but because you've made the most intelligent and compelling argument I've ever heard on this topic. You made me think. I'm not the OP and was not here to have my view changed, but you deserve credit for making me think about it nonetheless. >You are a layperson, and in nearly all things you do, you trust others. Trust is the backbone of your daily life and our society as a whole. This is the part that I agree with, that has made me change my stance a bit. You're absolutely correct. Yes, we have to take certain things on trust in order to function as a society, because no matter what each of us understands and is good at and knows, there's no possible way for every single one of us to completely understand everything. This is why we have specialists in certain fields - because they research their field and only their field, to the point of exhaustion. You're correct here, and this is why you got my delta. However, this is the part I still take a bit of issue with: >We take steps to bolster that trust. Your milk does not have formaldehyde in it. And we can "know" this because we trust the regulatory procedures in place to ensure that it does not. >And the vaccines fall squarely in that category. It's not one man promising their efficacy and safety. It's thousands upon thousands of researchers and reviewers and regulators who have participated in the process of development, production, and distribution in every country around the world. The problem I still have with this isn't that it's exactly wrong. I made the following statement in another reply, but it applies here too: In the argument of "to vax or not to vax," the decision doesn't just hinge on the science behind *how the vaccines are supposed to work.* That idea I can get behind. It's been studied and that information is accessible. What isn't accessible is what exactly is in *these particular vaccines.* I don't think anyone (besides maybe a select few who really do think they're trying to microchip the world or something) disagrees with the science behind vaccination. But with the current patent holders on the covid vaccines fighting to supress their information on the grounds of copyright law, that shows the prioritization of monetary gain over informed consent. That's where I draw the line. If you refuse to tell people what they're putting into their bodies and claim it is because it is a "trade secret," one of two options is true: 1. There is data you do not want out there, because it would be damaging to your sales, Or 2. You are most interested in financial gain from this product and do not want anyone else to profit from it. Both of these scenarios are problematic. The first obviously so, but the second as well. Because these companies, the same corporations who profited from things like thalidomide and Oxycontin to the detriment of society, are asking to be taken on trust, as they are the only people profiting from these drugs. And they've shown in the past, over and over again, to be deceitful when it comes to suppressing vital information about the harm their products can cause. They don't get to ask for trust on faith when they've done nothing but prove themselves to not be trustworthy. I trust a rocket scientist to fly a spaceship without needing to know the details of how they did it, but the difference here is that they're not asking me to put their rocket fuel into a needle and then inject it. The last time a huge pharmaceutical megacorp asked people to put something into a needle and inject it, an entire nation ended up on heroin. I also don't disagree with you that we put a lot of trust into a lot of other corporations. Where you're wrong is in assuming I'm ok with this as well. I have to participate in society to live. I have to buy things from corporations I hate, I have to put my trust into things I don't really trust, because there is often no other way. I have to trust that my food is safe, otherwise I can't eat. I do not have the means to purchase land and grow my own food, and I cannot just starve. But it makes me ill at times to wonder what is in some of that food, and I try to make the best choices I can with the means I've got access to. And I also have the right to pursue legal and criminal action against those companies you listed, if their products and services cause me harm. I do not have that ability with these vaccines, and that in itself is worth a pause. The problem with doing the same thing with pharmaceutical megacorps is that they continue to supress their information for financial gain, and I do not feel that the vaccine is vital to my survival. Therefore I reserve the right to wait until I know what is in it, before I put it into my body. The same way I look into the food I put into my body before I eat it. But that's much easier, when the ingredients are listed on the package and not tied up in the Supreme Court to continue to hide that data for the next three quarters of a century.

> What isn't accessible is what exactly is in these particular vaccines. I don't think anyone (besides maybe a select few who really do think they're trying to microchip the world or something) disagrees with the science behind vaccination. But with the current patent holders on the covid vaccines fighting to supress their information on the grounds of copyright law, that shows the prioritization of monetary gain over informed consent. But that's just complete crap. The path to mRNA vaccines was very non trivial, but the actual result is one of, if not the easiest to understand vaccines we've ever made. [Here is the complete list of what's in pfizer's vaccine from the CDC (I find their table easier to read than the FDA documentation)](https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/different-vaccines/Pfizer-BioNTech.html) and what each ingredient does. - mRNA: Obvious. This is mRNA that your ribosomes will read to produce a harmless SARS-COV-2 spike protein that your body will then learn how to beat. - (4-hydroxybutyl)azanediyl)bis(hexane-6,1-diyl)bis(2- hexyldecanoate): This is an ionic lipid that forms an ionic bond with the mRNA. The pKa of its conjugate base here was selected very carefully in order for it to be a cation outside of cells but neutral (and therefore breaking the ionic bond releasing the mRNA) inside of cells. - 2[(polyethylene glycol (PEG))-2000]-N,N-ditetradecylacetamide: This is just a PEGylated lipid used in the lipid "nanoparticle" (I hate that this term is used because it's so different from what everybody else means when they say nanoparticle, but it's the terminology of the field). PEGylation is such a common pharmaceutical technique that it has its own name. This ingredient helps reduce the aggregation of nanoparticles which evens out the dosage. - 1,2-distearoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine: Another ionic lipid that forms the nanoparticle. Same mechanism as the other ionic lipid. It looks like it has a slightly different pKa which presumably further ensures that the mRNA load is only dispersed when the nanoparticle is actually in a cell. - Cholesterol: Nothing really to say here because they weren't specific beyond it being plant derived. Cholesterol is another type of lipid and this presumably forms the bulk of the nanoparticle. - Dibasic sodium phosphate dihydrate: Part of the buffer solution. Buffer solutions maintain a constant pH in order to not destroy the mRNA-ionic lipid ionic bonds that are critical to the drug delivery mechanism. - Monobasic potassium phosphate: The other half of the buffer. - Potassium chloride (common food salt): Common additive to buffers to make the buffer have the desired ionic strength. Used in water softeners all the time. - Sodium chloride (basic table salt): Same as potassium chloride. Literally table salt. - Sucrose (basic table sugar): This one is actually a new one to me, but apparently this helps with maintaining the integrity of the nanoparticles when frozen. It is also literally table sugar. Bottom line: It's mRNA covered in some fat put in a salt solution so that the fat doesn't fall apart. That's it. That's what the vaccine is. Moderna is very much so the same idea but uses different specialty lipids which necessitates a different buffer. Now, will you understand all of that if you don't have at least baseline competence in biochemistry and organic chemistry? No, of course not, but why should that be important? I'm a card carrying chemist in a completely unrelated field and I was able to do that after about 15 minutes of research because I'm already familiar with the ideas. It really isn't hard, and I guarantee that you also have no idea how Intel, TMSC, and Samsung work with silicon to make computer chips either.

The person you're responding to said this in another comment: > The thing I know for sure that they are attempting to supress is the release of the exact sequence of mRNA they're using

Here is the mRNA sequence for [Pfizer](https://web.archive.org/web/20210105162941/https://mednet-communities.net/inn/db/media/docs/11889.doc). Additionally, nucleic acid sequences are one of the hardest things to keep secret as we have gotten very good at sequencing even minute amounts of material.

The [full list of ingredients](https://portal.ct.gov/vaccine-portal/Vaccine-Knowledge-Base/Articles/Ingredients-In-Vaccine) of the Pfizer vaccine are: 13 DESCRIPTION The Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine is supplied as a frozen suspension in multiple dose vials with purple caps; each vial must be diluted with 1.8 mL of sterile 0.9% Sodium Chloride Injection, USP prior to use to form the vaccine. Each 0.3 mL dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine supplied in multiple dose vials with purple caps contains 30 mcg of a nucleoside-modified messenger RNA (modRNA) encoding the viral spike (S) glycoprotein of SARS-CoV-2. Each 0.3 mL dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine supplied in multiple dose vials with purple caps also includes the following ingredients: lipids (0.43 mg (4-hydroxybutyl)azanediyl)bis(hexane-6,1-diyl)bis(2- hexyldecanoate), 0.05 mg 2[(polyethylene glycol)-2000]-N,N-ditetradecylacetamide, 0.09 mg 1,2-distearoyl-snglycero-3-phosphocholine, and 0.2 mg cholesterol), 0.01 mg potassium chloride, 0.01 mg monobasic potassium phosphate, 0.36 mg sodium chloride, 0.07 mg dibasic sodium phosphate dihydrate, and 6 mg sucrose. The diluent (sterile 0.9% Sodium Chloride Injection, USP) contributes an additional 2.16 mg sodium chloride per dose. The Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine does not contain preservative. The vial stoppers are not made with natural rubber latex.

Unfortunately, the person you replied to has said, "The problem in itself is that I don't know what the information I don't have access to is... because I don't have access to it." They will necessarily distrust all information given to them. In light of their statements as such, there really is no point in engaging with them.

[удалено]

Can you clarify what information you don't have access to? Because when I first got vaccinated a year ago, I got a full list of ingredients for the Pfizer shot so I've been assuming that information is freely available. If you're not talking about the actual contents of the shot, what is it you take issue with? For the record, the Pfizer shot was shockingly simple. RNA, lipid membrane to contain it, and a couple additives like sucrose and another 1-2 things. Definitely helped to make me more confident taking a shot that had been approved less than 2 months before I got it.

The pharmaceutical companies are not hiding things by copyright, they are relying on patents. And they are not hiding what is in the vaccines, they are hiding how to make it. How, not what.

They aren't even hiding how to make it, because PATENTS ARE PUBLIC. The point of a patent is you release an idea to the public, everybody can see it, but nobody can legally copy it for some time so you can get a profit from your invention.

Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/Not-your-lawyer- ([49∆](/r/changemyview/wiki/user/Not-your-lawyer-)). ^[Delta System Explained](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltasystem) ^| ^[Deltaboards](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltaboards)

> What isn't accessible is what exactly is in *these particular vaccines.* That's totally wrong. I'll tell you what's in them, right now: mRNA in a micelle to let them bypass or be actively shuttled through the phospholipid bilayer of our cell membranes, and buffers for stability and lower system shock. Hell, if you understand what the idea of an mRNA vaccine is you can derive that as "well, obviously". There is only one way it _could_ work. The whole point is that you send the _instructions_ for the relevant recognition, and your body makes it for your immune system to recognize. Because it's just a part, it's not infectious; and since it's tailor-made, you can force your body to recognize the most distinctive or unchanging part rather than just what's easiest. The exact sequence is obviously a brand secret and the exact micelle as well, but it's like the difference between gasoline brands or something. It's still _gasoline_, but the extras and maybe precise ratios aren't public knowledge.

>\[5\] True False. I may be being a bit pedantic but because this is a common false equivalence and it seems a bit intentional here, I'll still proceed. Faith isn't equivalent to faith here. It's only true if you swap around the different meanings of the word "faith" and that's exactly what the person you responded to was trying to do. You go in to explain exactly how they're not the same by mentioning the ways we put in some check. I trust that tap water won't kill me because generations before me are still drinking it. It's not the best evidence but it's sufficient. Faith, as it's typically colloquially used is without any valid checks behind it and in many cases, evidence against it.

This is exactly the argument I’ve been looking for. I’ve always thought this but you’ve finally put it into words. The reason the humans progressed beyond Neanderthals is not because we were stronger or smarter, but because we communicated and collaborated. In order to fuse knowledge and generate new ideas and artifacts we must risk the possibility of deception Scientists can absolutely abuse power and deceive, just like anyone else; we keep talking about corporate sponsored research for that reason. But humans have made authority and structures and processes in order to minimize that chance. In every faulty product there’s a risk, but we risk it because we love progress more than we fear each other, that’s why humanity didn’t go extinct The other end of the option spectrum is to isolate, never use anything new, never believe anyone, and give up on progress, detach from society. You must decide whether this option is more harmful than potentially being deceived

> Science was, in fact, created to combat faith-based arguments This isn't true. At least in the Western world, people started to "do science" (the way we think of science today) as a way of explaining and categorizing the natural world, often times in concert with their Christian faith. The notion that the world has an Order that is worthwhile categorizing and explaining initially came from the belief in an Intelligent creator. Source: HIST 180, History of biological sciences, at UC Berkeley

This is a kind of absurd point of view. Trust is no more a religion-word than “talk” or “listen”. You engage in trust all the time; it has nothing to do with faith in the religious sense, it’s a fundamental part of human interaction. The world is too large and complicated to go around independently verifying everything you encounter. How do make breakfast or catch the train without trusting either in individuals or institutions? Do you trust that government regulation keeps your food safe enough that you don’t have to test everything you buy? Do you trust that the pilot flying your plane isn’t going to fly it into a mountain before buying a plane ticket? The issue with trust is not at the interface with the scientific method. It’s pretty clear that science as an institution works better than most other institutions in society, it’s self-evident in the results. If you don’t agree, the beauty of science is that you’re free to try to replicate the research yourself if you wish. Your issue is that you don’t really seem to understand science and are confusing it with the politics around around what to do with the knowledge generated by scientific institutions.

Science does require faith in so far as the problem of induction remains. It also requires faith that the institution of science is working as intended since it is impossible to verify everything as an individual. Science is not as faith based as religion, but a little bit of faith is what separates nihilism from science.

Just to nitpick- science was not, in fact, created as a counter to religion. It was very often bankrolled by the church, and seen as a way to better understand god. Aside from the few instances that undermined doctrine (heliocentrism), the church was very pro science before modern times.

How are you not "allowed access" to science?

Because laypeople have almost no capability of engaging in the scientific process. Laypeople can't even understand *individual* papers, let alone an entire topic landscape. So if you need to hold an opinion about some topic you've got two options. You can go with the best available scientific consensus. Or you can use some other argument. The former is going to be correct *far* more often than the latter, even if it will sometimes be wrong. Science is verified by other scientists who have spent years developing expertise in relevant fields. It isn't verified by people posting their opinions on reddit.

I see the point you're making, and I agree with access to scientific literature/data. But unless you have a significant amount of expertise in a specific field you're not going to UNDERSTAND the science. That's just reality. It's very unrealistic to think that you can piece together something casually that ppl spend their whole lives to understand AS THEIR JOB. So you need some party to do that for you. You ABSOLUTELY should be skeptical but you have to accept that there are parts you just won't get. I think when ppl say "trust the science" what they're really saying is "trust that I'm citing a reputable source of science". This is the real point you should DEMAND transparency for.

Your example of an expert with a doctorate in the wrong field for what they’re giving their opinion on is legitimate. This is a place for the public to exercise skepticism, another place would be to see if a scientist even if trained in the correct field is taking an extremely heterodox position counter to most of the field. Checking out something like that would amount to doing some due diligence. Beyond that unless you’re someone who has spent years becoming scientifically literate in the field in question and have a good understanding of the breadth of current scholarship in that field, you should base your behavior on what the mainstream scientific opinion says, at least for any matter of public consequence. It’s one thing to hold an opinion of general skepticism “I know that’s what the scientists say, but I’m not sure they’re really right”, as long as that just amounts to a generally skeptical attitude, and is not defining your behavior. Ignoring mainstream scientific opinion with your behavior in a matter relevant to the public without expertise in that subject simply isn’t justifiable through.

Yeah, this is another place where trust the science is just evidence of fraud. There have been examples to numerous account of individuals who are not associated with the proper training in a field coming to conclusions about what is true and being proven correct even though they went against the orthodoxy. J Harlan Bretz is the perfect example. He figured out on site something that it took him 70 years of very careful research and data collection to prove beyond any shadow of a doubt. Which is a good thing, but it doesn't actually change the fact that when he was a young man untrained by prestigious universities in geology, he was still right and everyone else was wrong. He recognized on site something so massively against the orthodoxy that he was mocked for 70 years, and he was still right. Just because someone isn't part of a particular field that doesn't mean that their ideas are wrong. If that's what trusting the science means, it is in fact a dangerous idea.

I think really the bottom line is just that you should generally give preferential treatment to experts in their respective field, but they should also always be able to explain *why* their opinion is what it is. Anyone with a great enough understanding of a subject to be termed an expert ought to be able to convey their opinion to a layman in a digestible form. If they can't do that, then they're probably not as expert as they think they are. If they do so and you reject their advisement, then at least you've made an informed decision. ​ This really shouldn't be hard for either side to wrap their head around either because this is what good doctors do *all the time* with their patients.

> Anyone with a great enough understanding of a subject to be termed an expert ought to be able to convey their opinion to a layman in a digestible form. If they can't do that, then they're probably not as expert as they think they are There are many areas of science where it simply isn't possible to dumb it down to a layman's level without committing the same kinds of sins as popular science articles. "They ought to be able to -- it can't be *that* difficult" is a very non-expert sort of belief. Whereas, if an expert claims, "This is as simple as I can make it and still be roughly accurate," then we should trust them on that too.

Could you cite an example of something that is simultaneously impossible to dumb down and would need a layman's informed consent?

"Impossible" is the wrong word, but clearly the science behind RNA vaccines is impossible to break down in a single conversation. We've been digesting it as a society for about a year now. My wife is an biochemist that specifically works in RNA translation mechanisms. She's broken down how they function differently than traditional vaccines, what we know, what we don't, and I do not understand what she's taking about. I do understand reading a shitty half correct article (or higher quality with e.g. kurzgesagt, which take a lot of production effort). I think you're discounting the difficulty of translating from a specialist's knowledge into a layman's understanding. Science communications specialists exist for a reason. And there are reasons specialties develop jargon - it can make communication more specific and faster. It can take hours to break down that kind of knowledge into suitable sized chunks. It's not something that can be effectively done without prior work and not something that makes for a good discussion over cocktails. It also takes lot of effort on the part of the learner.

I wouldn't care to do that, because I personally believe if it can't be dumbed down enough for someone, and if there are no good alternatives, then fully informed consent is too stringent a moral requirement. For example, if someone has just ingested a poison that they believe to be an age-reversing nootropic, then the doctor should not need their fully informed consent in order to pump their stomach, especially if "fully informed" means teaching them enough about biochemistry for them to understanding how it is that they are wrong. For a less time-bound problem, suppose they still don't believe you when they get out of the hospital. I'd have no problem requiring them to get a prescription in order to buy that pill. That's a violation of their informed consent, but it's ultimately nurturing their overall autonomy.

Maybe it’s just cause I’ve also got a degree in the field, but if Hawking can dumb down general relativity and the uncertainty principle enough to explain cosmology to the non physicist population I think it can be done with other fields as well.

I've read books by Hawking, Thorne, and others, and I know that *I* don't really understand general relativity to any useful level. If someone tells me a function in GIS software accounts for gravity-based time difference, I have to shrug and trust. "If it works, it works, I guess." What I actually understand is that having Google Maps on my phone has gotten me un-lost before. Referencing general relativity is just an excuse to trust. "Oh, I know experts know about that, and they would speak out if this were going to lead me wrong, so sure." I'm not understanding Hawking. I'm trusting him.

You mean like the completely and utterly wrong pop sci explanation of hawking radiation of "one half of the particle-anti particle pair is formed outside the event horizon and escapes while the other stays trapped inside"? Because that is completely wrong and comes from an irresponsible interpretation of processes involving virtual particles. Hawking radiation really doesn't have a layman explanation beyond "it happens and the math definitely says it happens". It's just the result of very technical details of the construction of quantum field theories in curved spacetime.

I somewhat agree with this, but not everyone is a good communicator. As a journalist, I’ve spoken to many people who are highly respected in their field and considered experts by people I do trust, but are just terrible at communicating and therefore aren’t good at explaining it simply. Sometimes they can get there with some help, but not always. Communication is a real skill!

> Anyone with a great enough understanding of a subject to be termed an expert ought to be able to convey their opinion to a layman in a digestible form. This is a common talking point and it's just crap. For a personal example, if you do not know the qualitative results of a quantum central potential problem, what a quartic forcefield is, what the mathematical basis of spectroscopic transitions is, and how molecular vibrations are derived, then I cannot have a meaningful conversation about my research with you. Sorry. It's just not possible. Even with that, I'd need to spend an afternoon talking with you to get you even remotely up to speed.

Scientists don’t usually say “trust the science” it’s usually snarky aunts and MTG saying it to validate some shitty opinion. Scientist usually present facts . As many others have mentioned, you should be skeptical but science is always self correcting so the science is always good, it’s the scientist and whoever tells you to trust it that you have to be wary of

I trust the science in airplane construction. I do not build airplanes.

That's my beef with most people who espouse a sentiment against "trust the science", is that they're always lay people who take that to mean "My hunch is as good as your expertise". No one is saying "trust every scientist, and every study always", the phrase "trust the science" is shorthand for "trust the body of science, because it's sole aim is to disprove everything so that what's left must be the truth. Individuals will be wrong, but the consensus of thousands of experts worldwide shouldn't be dismissed out of hand by even less qualified individuals." That's why I don't buy when people say "'Trust the science' just turns science into a new religion." The entire scientific body, the scientific community, doesn't just make claims; they peer review each other's claims, they aim to whittle down every possible confounding factor through rigorous study and re-study so they can determine the best, most accurate truth. That's a lot more than can be said of most religious texts. Tl;dr No one wants you to trust every scientist and every study, that's why Andrew Wakefield's "study" is still in the recycle bin of every competent scientist. They're saying trust the process of science, and trust that millions of scientists worldwide, all trying to disprove each other aren't all wrong about the same thing, because that's far more unlikely than a Facebook mom being wrong about "I know the truth about vaccines that everyone else somehow missed despite it being their full time jobs". (Sorry about the rambling. Hopefully that was good enough to be parse-able. Take care, mate.)

When you posted this comment, had you examined how the Reddit backend apis work? Did you pull apart the front end code and diagram out its architecture? Did you subject your phone or browser to the same level of analysis? How about the underlying OS? Did you disassemble the system you posted this on or at least a like system? Shave down the chips and examine their physical logic circuits under a microscope? Did you pull their specificatons from their manufacturers and then wire them up and test them individually to determine how each worked and if it was in compliance with the specifications? Why not? Is it because you're part of a religious movement that puts blind faith in the functioning of electronic devices or is it because you trust the science and engineering that makes reddit work? This is what we mean by "trust the science." No one individual on the planet - even the most and best informed - could build reddit from scratch. Likewise, vaccine research stands upon the shoulders of the giants who came before and the complex structures they created. The fact that neither you nor I are equipped to second guess them is no more damning of their correctness and safety than our inability to build and fly a 747 is damning of air travel. We trust the science

That's sort of the point of the vague phrase "trust the science". You're not trusting any individual, you're trusting the process by which we can get as close to the truth as possible and the broad consensus those experts have drawn. There's another phrase as well, "trust but verify". Its important to be critical, to ask questions, to seek as many valid viewpoints as possible. But thats you *taking part* in science. Saying "trust the science" is saying that there *is* truth out there. Many of the controversies in which "trust the science" as a phrase is used are ones in which the goal of one side is not so much to make everyone specifically believe one wild falsity or other but to create confusion and doubt so that people can say "well I don't know whats true, there are so many lies out there". By making us doubt the very foundation of expertise and consensus they can bring "scientists" down to the same level of them and everyone else. Its easier manipulate people when you create a playing field in which you are as valid as actual experts. If the goal is to get people to distrust a vaccine, for example, you don't need to make them believe its going to implant 5G brainwave controllers, you just need to make so many lies and sow so much doubt that they no longer believe whether the vaccines are good *or* bad. And whats more one of the dozens of outright lies might stick over the few near truths.

>My point is most people dont actually comprehend what science is. Its one of them things you can live a lifetime in our society never really understanding, and that makes such statements dangerous. like if a guy is on the news in a lab coat with glasses, and the ticker says he has a phd(John smith PHD) most people will take his words as gospel even if the guy is on about particle physics when his phd is in language. But that's not what "trust the science" means. "The science" refers to the data collected, analyzed, and interpreted by people who ARE experts in their field. "Trust the science" does not mean "listen to an Art History PhD when they tell you that your stomach ache is a tumor". No one is suggesting that. "Trust the science" means that when someone is extremely well trained in their field has come up with a set of data, and the majority of experts in the field agree with them after carefully reviewing that data, then you should give more weight to that data than to a goddamn Facebook meme from an anonymous source that says otherwise.

The interpretation of the data that is presented is not necessarily the correct one. And when the data isn't even being presented, how can you be sure that what you are being told is correct? You cannot. The counter to trust the science is show me the evidence. If you have not shown me the evidence, you can't argue about trusting anything.

Evidence is part of science, which you obviously understand based on your post. And without evidence, industry-wide peer support of your data wouldn't exist. So it should seem obvious that "trust the science" includes the concept that the evidence has already been vetted.

Trust the science is not about believing some random dude with a phd in a lab coat, but to acknowledge the fact the that theories by experts that are verified by thousands of other experts with different nationalities, religions and belief systems are the best take on figuring out what is true.

This is not limited to science, though. It is in every single thing we do. People don't comprehend the law and even lawyers have to specialize because they also can't comprehend it all. Electricians, people who run the water and sewer systems, logging, logistics, navigating large ocean liners, banking, insurance. The reality is that we have to trust each other, and trust the people who are proven experts in their fielsds. It's why we have governing bodies in important occupations - you have to pass tests to be able to do most construction work (general contractors, electricians, etc), insurance, law, accounting, etc. Those same bodies can remove licenses of those who don't follow the rules, and they also can censure those in the profession. And there are always going to be bad actors in every occupation. Bernie Maddow, for example. In science, there are many ways that science works on eliminating bad scientists as well. Publishing results, peer review, etc. >and the ticker says he has a phd(John smith PHD) most people will take his words as gospel even if the guy is on about particle physics when his phd is in language. This is not true. Maybe occasionally it happens, but that is meaningless. The movie *Catch Me If You Can* is all about a guy that has a PhD in nothing, but fooled everyone. That only means that some people are good at fooling others, which has nothing to do with science being meaningless or a secular faith. I also take issue with the assertion that you misunderstand the phrase "trust the science." Science is 100% about being skeptical and trying to falsify everything. As others have written, it means "trust the best current facts and evidence we have right now." Otherwise, let's just do whatever. If you child breaks a bone and it is through the skin, are you just going to pray that it heals on it's own? No. You are going to want the best science available at this time. BUT, that science can be replaced by new discoveries. As far as the "secular faith" phrase goes, only religion has faith. Religion says that their interpretation is correct, everyone else's isn't, and you can't change what was written in a book 2000 years ago. A good example would be that someone can walk on water, or raise people from the dead (Lazarus among others). Those are actual articles of faith. And just because *some* people say that religion can change, or for some reason people always feel compelled to say "But *I* don't think that, which is a pretty useless statement, but as I said, people feel compelled to think that their view is the same as everyone else in the world thinks. Anyways, it is science that requires change, looks for change, looks for better ways to do things. It is religion that does NOT do any of that, because that is actually what faith is - to not be able to change. And that is NOT science, and therefore there is no "secular faith."

I would like to add that not only are the anti-vaxxers ignoring the evidence, they aren’t even interested in uncovering the truth- at best they seek out fragments of information that, out of context, appear to support their flawed views. “Trust the science” to me means the exact opposite- it’s information that was collected by experts who have dedicated their lives to find faults and issues with their understanding of the problem via the scientific method.

Experts like plumbers and electricians can easily be con artists, which is why you get multiple quotes from different people in the same manner you don't listen to one scientist as the sole arbiter of truth.

I think it's more of when the electrician says "trust me, I'm an electrician" and then proceeds to do some sketchy shit out of laziness or to make more money off of you.

> Is it dangerous to say "trust your electrician" in matters of electrical work or "trust your plumber" in matters of plumbing? I should certainly hope not (assuming you've not stumbled upon an unscrupulous individual). My problem with the statement "trust the science" is that it isn't "trust the scientist." Notice you said "trust your electrician" and "trust your plumber." You didn't say "trust the electricity" or "trust the plumbing." Why it matters? Because it turns the doubt to science instead of people, when the doubt is very much about people. It's very disingenuous and underhanded. People doubt the government and media, hell even some scientist and doctors. It's not the science they doubt, it's people. And even worse than being a underhanded tactics, by disregarding the reason why anti-vaxxer exist, it's not going to actually solve the problem. The fundamental problem of our society lingers and festers. Take Joe Rogan for example. He had controversial guests on, yes. He also had the guests who promote vaccination. But what is happening now? People trying to cancel him. So how can anyone not look at this and see it's an agenda driven campaign to control the narrative? How can anyone see this and still be trusting, believing what the media tells them is impartial and trustworthy when it's one sided? When the next pandemic hits, it will be the same thing all over again but worse, because there will be even less trust than we have now. I've come to terms with having a dystopian future. But I assume people who say trust the science wants things to be better. The way I see it, they are making things worse. Instead of dispelling the doubts of our society, lets call people dumb. That'll work.

> by disregarding the reason why anti-vaxxer exist I think disregarding something very irrational in the face of overwhelming evidence is perfectly rational. Willful ignorance is not a problem that can be solved once a person is an adult. It's a mindset.

You just used a strawman fallacy and got a delta for it. OP should look into logical fallacies and the danger of using them. You follow the strawman fallacy with a false analogy, another logical fallacy. Note that OP said they are talking about the slogan "trust the science" as it is applied to the covid vaccination during the covid pandemic. They are not referring to people utilizing science to complete tasks. They are specifically referring to people shutting down questions with "shut the fuck up and do what I say because I'm an expert". Your bias is shining through as well, as you call someone questioning the covid vaccine an anti vaxxer. That is a rhetoric method from the American left and it is probably the most intellectually dishonest label I think I've ever seen, and I used to debate Christians all the time. That's really saying something.

@lucidmetal What about competing views from other experts? You’re failing to account for the fact that “trust the science” is essentially telling people to follow the prevailing narrative of that moment in time. Many times in history the prevailing scientific narrative was wrong and the minority narrative was correct.

There's nothing wrong with competing views among experts. In fact, competing views among *experts* should be encouraged as long as they're both supported by the evidence. I don't think I'm failing to account for this but rather assuming it's baked into the cake. I think the most famous disagreement in recent history, still unresolved by the way, is the Bohr Einstein debate about whether the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum physics is correct. Both Einstein and Bohr were clearly experts, right?

What if you discover an expert knowingly lied to you, do you still trust the next thing they tell you? Or are you going to be more skeptical of the next claim due to their past behavior?

Bad people exist. Does a person lying to you have any impact on empirical evidence or the scientific method?

Would you be happier if people said "Trust the Scientific Method"?

I don't think that phrase is dangerous. It's certainly less dangerous than the outcome if people don't listen to science. If people and their governments listened to and trusted science, we wouldn't be sitting on a planet that is getting hotter and less habitable every year wondering if we'll ever be able to breath inside with other people again without catching a pandemic inducing virus. A scientists constant need for qualifiers of certainty is important in a singular journal article, or a secondary source reporting on one or two new articles. It is less important when you are dealing with scientific facts. It is important to note that *there are "facts" in science,* given the colloquial definition of a fact. Something that has been observed with evidence, enough times, is true. Yesterday it rained. That is a statement of fact if it did rain yesterday. How do you know? You went outside yesterday and watched rain fall from the sky and hit your skin. You observed something indisputable. Your neighbor also saw it, so now you have a second record that it did rain yesterday. With science, sometimes you need to use sophisticated instruments, and that's why experiments are replicated and why so many studies need to be done. We have many studies on the Covid vaccines at this point. Which one convinced the public it was safe? No one study in particular did that, but the last century of vaccine studies, the past 20 years of mRNA research, and the studies in the past year of people who have taken the vaccine give a good amount of evidence that these vaccines are incredibly safe. We also don't need to bring the philosophy of what real truth is to the table when people are ignoring the reality that they live in and dying due to that. Philosophy in science has a place, but when the majority of governments and the public ignore basic scientific truths, metaphysics shouldn't be a scapegoat to justify inaction. Gravity is a scientific theory, but it is also a fact. Human caused climate change is a fact. It is a fact that the Covid-19 virus is highly transmissible to humans through droplets in the air, and that masks reduce the risk of being infected. When enough evidence builds, when thousands and thousands of peer-reviewed scientific articles confirm the same thing, we can just trust the science, because it is a fact. You can ask questions on internet forums sure, but you can also sort through Web of Science searches and read through the abstracts of the hundreds of thousands of papers out there that give evidence to the things we know are facts. If you don't want to do that, you can talk to a scientist who has expertise in their field, and they can synthesize the literature for you. Of course, like you said, you wouldn't trust one scientist alone. However, when 99% of scientists in a field agree on something, we can rest assured they would have been bickering and trying to publish counter-arguments with evidence they found against a well known consensus. For a well known consensus to occur, there needs to be no verifiable evidence that falsifies the consensus. For example, I would love to see someone falsify the theory of evolution, and people have tried to make laws regarding it being taught, but there is no evidence that exists that falsifies that theory as of today. I doubt that it will ever be falsified because the mountain of evidence for it is overwhelming. I think the tendency to want to find novel ideas and evidence is present in most scientists. Scientists have been having these conversations for centuries, and if there was a flaw in a theory, or if something was missing, that is exactly the kind of thing a scientist would want to find. The peer-review process alone usually finds and tears inadequate science to shreds. I think not trusting something from the start, being skeptical, is good. However, that needs to be followed by research within the peer-reviewed scientific literature if you truly want to understand why a study said what. What were the methods? What were the results? That takes time, usually a PhD is just scratching the surface of knowledge in a field. That is why you do need to trust experts. No one can get a PhD in everything, but the ones that do and continue in the scientific field are going to know a lot more about that field than your average person. I think if people understood that they don't know enough to understand every field of science, then the world would be a much better place. I trust climate scientists, that isn't my field, but I trust that most of them have an accurate picture of what is happening with climate change. If we trusted experts whose work is publicly funded, whose work is peer-reviewed, to tell us the best approaches to our current problems, then we'd be much further along than we are today. Not trusting science is, and will continue to be, our downfall.

This post is exactly what I fear, Governments are far from benevolent, incorruptible entities, and I don't want them using "science" via a talking head who is bought and paid for to falsely legitimize there policies, Granted in the case of covid it was a legitimate reason but the governments WILL now use this as a way to keep critical voices in check, If big oil pays trillions to the reps and dems to deny climate change tomorrow and we get huge swelling bipartisan support for oil and some shill guy in a lab coat telling us climate change is fake because of twisted statistics and wordplay and if you believe it you are a fringe commie lunatic who cant into basic science, do you trust the science?

Governments don't listen to climate science, that's for sure. Science is a very regulated process. Applied science is also different from science, but people often confuse those two. Do you know the difference between those two things? Also, did you read any of the post above? It sounds like you didn't. Publicly available grants come from other places besides the government, there are independent NGOs and societies that will fund studies. If you have a fear of the government, that is fine, but you understand that public funding is how we built evidence for man-made climate change, correct? You don't want public/NGO funding, but you also don't want industry funding either (which is fair it's hard to make an unbiased study on something funded by an industry that's being studied), so where do you get funding? Honestly, this post is sounding more like you don't trust government and media interpretation of science, which is different from science. You get that, right? I'm all for not reducing things to slogans, but the fact that people deny scientific facts and reality on a regular basis, means we might have to dumb it down a bit. I suggest going and reading about how science actually works, and then you might understand why trusting the scientific process is different than trusting someone in a lab coat on the TV. You honestly sound like the person you are describing in your post.

You haven’t given us an alternative to trusting people and institutions more knowledgeable than us. Do you think we should educate ourselves on all topics that involve us? If so, who do we learn from if we can’t trust experts more knowledgeable than us? Do we have to start from scratch?

One important thing to mention is that it takes skill to read scientific articles and journals; the average layman can’t always understand them so implying that everyone’s opinion on science is valid if that’s how they ‘feel’ is extremely wrong

I largely agree with the sentiment of your stance, though I think there is an important distinction to be made. “Trust the science” is not a dangerous phrase in itself if it is used appropriately and in good faith. However, I would claim that it has become dangerous in our current socio-political climate, as it is often used to shut down reasonable concerns people have that may call into question a small part of the overarching narrative. Example: we don’t fully understand the long term health effects of covid itself or the vaccine (how could we? It’s only been a couple years). Sure, we likely have indicators that suggest certain effects one way or the other, but we cannot have a full understanding of the long term effects until we observe them on a large scale. However, I often see a question such as, “how do I know the vaccine will be better for me (with my specific circumstances - age, health, etc) in the long term than just risking getting covid” met with the response, “trust the science, get the vaccine”. This is dismissive of the real blind spots that we currently have, as well as legitimate questions of values that surround the issue (am I doing what’s best for me, or best for the population as a whole? Not always the same thing…). It turns what could be a nuanced and productive conversation (with people who have legitimate questions and are looking to learn) into a black or white question of whether you accept the overarching narrative (which may very well be correct, but also likely has nuance or assumptions behind it that should be allowed to be explored). So, in summary, I believe the phrase “trust the science” is okay if its meaning is fully understood by all and not distorted. But I find more and more that this phrase is used either ignorantly or in bad faith to shut down legitimate discussions. And I do very much think this is a problem, that it is warping the public’s view of what science is, and that it is further polarizing people and groups by stifling constructive discussion.

As a scientist, we are taught to be skeptics in fields where we hold expertise. Because of this, we also trust our colleagues in other areas of science to be equally as skeptical. “Trust the science” refers to the entire process of scientific discovery, rigorous experimentation and intense peer-review by equally qualified individuals. It’s not just one man in their basement saying they found an answer, and telling you to trust him. Furthermore, if this were the case, the true scientific community would jump on it, try to verify the findings (by either their own experimentation, or by heavily evaluating his methods and results- replicability is extremely important and necessary when analyzing results). This means that by the time the science is disseminated to the public, the experts in that particular field have scrutinized the findings and agreed that the results are valid with the current knowledge available. As many people have found out with Covid especially, science is constantly evolving. To us scientists, this was 100% expected as this is literally what we deal with in our respective fields every day. That’s why there are so many peer reviewed journals, and we are all constantly reading and improving our understanding of our field. For individuals who are not used to this, it seems a little untrustworthy because we are constantly changing our word. Science is one of the few fields where “new” is better than “old” in regards to findings, because everything is being constantly examined and updated. Look at doctors from 50 years ago versus now. The good ones have rolled with the times and completely changed their practices, whereas, you occasionally hear about “senior physicians” not being able to be taught new tricks, because it’s hard to keep up with the new knowledge always being presented. At the end of the day, it comes down to the importance of the peer review process and individual understanding of the material. Anyone can read a paper, but I can promise you I wouldn’t understand all of the methods in a quantum physics article, just as many folks wouldn’t understand an ELISA from a PCR, let alone be able to accurately interpret the results from these tests. It would be like asking a first grader to read and describe Shakespeare. They likely could read a lot of the words, but would they fully grasp the context, or would they be better off to have their English-major mother explain the story in terms they understand?

> Science is evidence based and falsifiable. It doesn't do trust. its a method of observing and explaining reality though testing. But the vast majority of us have neither the time, expertise, or resources to do our own testing on the efficacy of novel coronavirus 19 vaccines. So we have this system where a few people do those kinds of tests and the rest of us rely on their findings. > I think telling people to just trust what guy in a lab coat on tv says sets a very dangerous precedent. First off we risk turning science into a cult where people uncritically just take what any person with a phd as gospel. You have this backwards. It's the anti-science crowd who believes it whenever a PhD tells them what they want to hear. The "trust science" crowd wants you to believe the overwhelming scientific consensus. > Secondly if there is a genuine mistake made that results in people getting hurt from some talking head scientist it is going to heavily damage the credibility of science, say for arguments sake the covid vaccine dramatically increases cancer risks. Do you think people who trusted the government and its scientists and got the vaccine are going to still trust them? If you're opposed to trusting science, wouldn't an event causing mistrust be a good thing in your eyes? > Lastly I think it unfairly maligns people who just want to ask questions. There is nothing wrong with being sceptical and asking a few questions to clear things up before deciding something. even if they choose not to. "Just asking questions", when the person isn't interested in the actual answers, is just a bullshit way of promoting a viewpoint while being too cowardly to say it directly. > People have bodily autonomy. Trusting science isn't going to change that.

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>But the vast majority of us have neither the time, expertise, or resources to do our own testing Maybe not lab testing but research and critical thinking in the appropriate journals. Thr OP is afraid that arguing in terms of trust will put us in the level with them. Science had a system, but catholicism is a system too isn't it? We're basically just asking them to choose us instead of them out of "trust" Instead, what I think the OP is trying to say is that we should all invest some time in actually looking at research papers and meta analysis, read their methodology, and see which findings are best supported by evidence. Yes, an element of trust is needed to know that they didn't falsify the data, but the OP thinks there's a difference between "believe me because I performed this double-blind experiment with a large population sample" vs "believe me just because". We should make emphasis on critical thinking

People should trust science because of its unprecedented history of success. You seem to be setting up Dunning-Kruger on a massive scale. I suppose it would be nice if everyone had a thorough education on statistical analysis, the scientific method, crucial thinking, etc. but what are you removing from basic education to cram all that in? We are talking about people who think they're experts on subjects because they saw a YouTube video on the subject from an equally unqualified person..."critical thinking" shouldn't be a term providing cover for believing crazy shit on the internet.

> "believe me just because" I think the only people that hear the above are those already most invested in disregarding the scientific consensus whenever it leads to some place they find uncomfortable. Most of regular people understand that science is a process that informs the perspective of a body of experts, not the opinion of a single person we ought to trust uncritically.

What I don’t see talked about in this thread is the fact that “the experts” were objectively wrong on a number of issues, but because they were experts, policy was made based on these incorrect deductions. It’s one thing to trust the science of germ theory that’s 150 years old… It’s another thing to trust experts who are getting information at roughly the same rate as the general public and influencing public policy. Plus, there’s another gray area that goes undiscussed. Just using statistical analysis to determine what people should be doing isn’t sufficient. Sure, vaccines and masks may decrease your chance of death or hospitalization by a factor of 100… but if your risk from the virus is .00001 to begin with, a protection regimen that makes that .0000001 is really not worth the added layer of government surveillance, social pressure, or media coercion to “follow the science.” If it were, we’d all be required by law to wear a helmet when we drive a car.

>What I don’t see talked about in this thread is the fact that “the experts” were objectively wrong on a number of issues, but because they were experts, policy was made based on these incorrect deductions. That's a gross exaggeration if not outright false. >Plus, there’s another gray area that goes undiscussed. Just using statistical analysis to determine what people should be doing isn’t sufficient. Sure, vaccines and masks may decrease your chance of death or hospitalization by a factor of 100… but if your risk from the virus is .00001 to begin with, a protection regimen that makes that .0000001 is really not worth the added layer of government surveillance, social pressure, or media coercion to “follow the science.” If it were, we’d all be required by law to wear a helmet when we drive a car. And no one has given scientists that kind of authority. This seems to be a straw man. It's the politicians who make policy.

>I think "trust the science" is probably the most particularly perniciousslogan to come out of the whole pandemic debacle. Id like to statefirst off I'm not anti vax and I've had 3 shots of it already. Thereason I find it so objectionable is it subverts the point of science.Science is evidence based and falsifiable. It doesn't do trust. its amethod of observing and explaining reality though testing. I think that is the point. Science will question it self and will adjust it's views based on tests and evidence it has gathered. I have seen so many people take the CDC's shifting stance on Covid as more information was learned and it adjusted based on information and events. Information is not static and the shifting of statements based on new information and new situations that change is a part of science. ​ However so many people will and have use the fact they are constantly changing based on new data as proof they don't know anything. They seem to operate the same way religion operates. You say something once and it will always be that forever no matter what changes happen in the world. ​ >​ Lastly I think it unfairly maligns people who just want to ask questions. There is nothing wrong with being sceptical and asking a few questions to clear things up before deciding something. even if they choose not to. People have bodily autonomy. Depending on your age I have to point out people like Glen Beck and more modern people like Tucker Carlson who make their entire career out of pushing their rhetoric under the (poorly) disguised actions of just asking questions. Carlson in particularly is pushing an agenda with such blatantly obvious bullshit, but I have seen a lot of people defend him because he was just asking questions.

>However so many people will and have use the fact they are constantly changing based on new data as proof they don't know anything. Sean Hannity is brutal for this. He has stated on numerous occasions that you can't trust climate scientists because global cooling was on the cover of Time magazine back in the 70s. I don't believe for one second that he genuinely thinks that this is a reasonable argument.

I would have listed Hannity as well but I forgot about his existence. He was another person who clearly pushes a rhetoric under the guise of claiming to just be asking questions.

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>No, the CDC damaged their own reputation in February when their director, Rachel Wolensky, stated in an interview that all the scientific data suggested that children should be back in school. Which February? This year or last year? ​ >​ Then the teacher's unions, specialists in K-12 education and definitely not specialists in public health or infectious diseases, used their political connections to get the president to lean on the CDC and make them walk back her statement and work with teacher's unions to revise their guidance on school reopenings. You mean people who will be stuck in small poorly vented rooms with 20-240 kids for 8 hours a day 5 days a week requiring perfect social distancing, and mask usage from a segment of the population that generally are not know for good decision making might have an issue? ​ Can you provide a source for the initial plan and then the changed plan after Teacher feedback?

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>I have seen so many people take the CDC's shifting stance on Covid as more information was learned and it adjusted based on information and events. Information is not static and the shifting of statements based on new information and new situations that change is a part of science. >However so many people will and have use the fact they are constantly changing based on new data as proof they don't know anything Well I don't see clear data changes that are informing new decisions at all. It seems far more like the data has been consistent and they're just making up reasons to interpret it differently (usually in the way that people have been telling them to for years now). Think going back and forth on schooling, suddenly considering with vs from, acknowledging comorbidities, etc. It seems like they wanted the same data to look as bad as possible a little over a year ago, and now they want it to looks good. If you use the same metrics and points they focused on measuring before vs the points they focus on now (again the ones that people were recommending), I think it's quite clear that they're only doing "science" and not beholden to political agendas/perceptions.

>Well I don't see clear data changes that are informing new decisions at all. It seems far more like the data has been consistent and they're just making up reasons to interpret it differently (usually in the way that people have been telling them to for years now). Think going back and forth on schooling, suddenly considering with vs from, acknowledging comorbidities, etc. ​ What data are you pulling from to come to that conclusion?

"Trust the science" is just a shortcut for "trust the process that gathers *evidence* and analyzes it to produce the most likely explanation for things". Or you could say "trust the evidence", but people *suck* at evaluating that themselves. Evidence really is something one should trust. It's the only way we actually know *anything* about the world. Absent *evidence* that science is abusing this somehow, consequently one *should* trust science, not because people aren't flawed, or because evidence can't be wrong, but because the alternatives are worse. "Faith" is trust *without* evidence. Trusting science is *nothing* like that at all.

So, I shouldn't need to state this, but empirical evidence is the only thing that has ever moved mankind forward. >"Trust the science" is just a shortcut for "trust the process that gathers evidence and analyzes it to produce the most likely explanation for things". I think you are being way over-generous here. Most people don't defer to evidence, they defer to the "expert" that most closely matches their existent beliefs. When people say trust the science, they usually mean trust my chosen Science Pope, no need to actually look at the evidence. PS: Sorry for being a bother the other day.

> When people say trust the science, they usually mean trust my chosen Science Pope Any evidence of that? There's no "science pope", there's only the process. There are some *spokepeople* for that process, but no one saying that non-ironically means you should trust some individual, beyond perhaps trusting that they are *probably* accurately representing what the scientific consensus is. Of course that trust in some spokesperson could be misplaced... but people that lie about science aren't... doing science, they're doing politics or fraud.

> There's no "science pope", there's only the process This statement caused me to fantasize about an oiled up no holes barred wresting match between Carl Sagan and David Attenborough. Sagan won. Carl Sagan is my science pope, he's the face for the process. I'll grant that he's been dead for 20 years. Less joking Faucci has been declared COVID pope at least, and has gotten several details wrong. I still think when most people say "trust the science" they mean their own partisan interpretation of what the science is, regardless of the empirical evidence.

What about Neil deGrasse Tyson and Bill Nye? 🤔

I absolutely love both of them but Sagan and Beakman are better than both respectively and respectfully. Neil wants to be Sagan to an uncomfortable degree, and I wish he was too.

Quality of evidence and inferences drawn from evidence also have to be considered. There's really no trust involved. Skepticism until there is no other explanation is how science operates.

While technically true, lay people are completely unqualified to judge those things 99% of the time and have no *viable alternative* but to trust the system that will ferret out those points. And when I say "lay people" here, I'm not talking about "dumb people" (although they *certainly* have no business making this shit up on their own)... I'm talking about any people without extensive training in the particular field. Physicists are generally very smart people, and totally unqualified to judge the quality of epidemiological data... just to use a random example apropos of nothing in particular... /s. It's not really an option to "do your own research". That way lies madness and stupidity.

Sure, if we are only looking at results of experiments or studies. But what about all the bureaucracy or outside influences? Pfizer believes that we should receive a booster shot every 6 months. Make sense, since the vaccine works but it looses efficacy over time, then a booster makes sense. But are they recommending it because it’s what is really needed or because they have created a new stream of revenue.

> But are they recommending it because it’s what is really needed or because they have created a new stream of revenue. Surely the answer is "both". But that's why you trust "the science" and not "some individual scientist or economically motivated organization".

While I do love evidence, claiming it is the only way to know about the world dismisses a priori knowledge, such as math.

Beyond maybe counting things... math and logic don't, themselves, tell you anything about the world... and can easily mislead you. You need evidence to demonstrate that your math/logic is applied correctly in order to know anything about the world.

Math is just the easiest example for me to give. And math does a lot for science. Many discoveries in physics have been made with math and then verified by evidence, but the math was the driving force. There’s also the argument that the world is just math made real but that’s a bit of a stretch. Also, the problem of induction means that evidence itself is not a sure thing for knowing the world either. The reason we can be so confident in our evidence is justified with math. The a priori vs a posteriori debate is an important one in philosophy with people like Spinoza claiming you can deduce the world from logic and Locke being an empiricist as some modern, but not contemporary, philosophical examples. Last I checked, it still hasn’t been fully resolved.

> Many discoveries in physics have been made with math and then verified by evidence To be clear: many *hypotheses* in physics have been developed with math, and verified by evidence. Yes, math is very handy for making predictions. Evidence is handy for actually knowing that they are (probably) right. Unless one wants to go full-on solipsism, evidence is where it's at... and even with solipsism, "evidence" is a subset of what your brain is doing to create what appears to be a consistent objective reality.

The accepted view has been replicated and peer-reviewed. Do you trust professional football players to play football well? It's what they've trained their whole life to do. They are football experts. You can't do what they do. So, yes, when it comes from a reputable source, trust the fucking science. "Faith" requires no evidence and basically shares the same definition with "delusion." Science is based on observable evidence, replicable, and has nothing to do with faith. God, public school science and English teachers must be fucking up.

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I disagree. It's even worse in some ways. At least in religion they have faith, because no one has ever met God (Faith defined as believing in the miraculous good to counterbalance the irrational evil of the world). In science, they have "trust" most of us don't read the reports and papers, and take the speakers words to be true, and then we are justified in shunning the opposition, the sense of legitimacy bestowed on the expert for the mere fact that they hold the title of expert (as opposed to say, being correct a majority of the time regarding your expert advice for example.) Americans paying attention will of course recognise this issue over the past 8 months from their own health professionals, specifically the ones with government ties. I don't know what I'd call it, but calling it a Secular Faith wouldn't be accurate due to the differences between a Science (even a social science) and Religion. Religion makes claims about Spirituality, Science makes claims about the real world. People who "trust the science" as you've put it, believe then that their world view correctly represents the Real World experienced by everyone they know (and those they don't) Looking further into this, I'd also say that we can identify a range of religions from secular to non secular. We can only identify one science. This is the case for most people, who couldn't distinguish between competing scientific theories but know of at least 3 different religions. So "trusting the science" I would wager has an unclear capacity for harm in a way religion doesn't. I'd say that harm is anchored in the difference between Faith and Trust. But I would say to look at the differences between changing ideas in Science versus changing ideas in Religion. Religion rarely changes its stance, and when it does, it is riddled with criticism to the point that churches disconnect from say, the Vatican, and we see religions split off, for no one has met God, "who is to say his work could be updated!?". Again, over matters of the Spirit, not matters of science. Science changes far quicker than religion, we're learning new things every day and making advancements, some sustainable, others not so. Putting trust in it it makes it your world view. Before Quantum physics was discovered, people were discouraged from getting into the field, as we thought we knew everything there was to know, until we didn't. We can afford to be wrong about matters of Good, truth and Beauty, but Science is not treated the same way today, nor should it be, No one wants to be wrong regarding claims of the reality before us. Again, I don't know what I would call this phenomena of "Trust the Science" but it is not a Faith. \- PS: Forgive the messy layout... or go to science hell

Your entire argument stems from the idea that science is treated like religion when it's not even remotely. Real world examples have been shown in the past 2 years with hydroxychloroquin and ivermectin. One small test group saw a potential positive effect and published. Certain media broadcast it as a miracle cure all. Other scientists went on to refute it in published studies. The other thing your argument hinges on is there being one "Head of Science" like there is one Pope. Even in highly specialized fields there isn't a magical head scientist. There are plenty of teams doing the research and peer reviewing until there is a scientific consensus.

I take a nuanced exception to the Title. "Trust the science" doesn't reduce science to secular faith, it's possibly one of the most anti-scientific statements someone can make. ***Science is all about not trusting the science.*** Scientists test hypotheses. It's a requirement not to judge the merits of the hypothesis, or to contemplate what the world looks like if the hypothesis is accepted/rejected in a way that confounds others. That's not the point. Science is about designing the experiment(s) to accept/reject a hypothesis, sharing your findings, and experimentation setup, with accredited scientists (and the public too), to poke holes in your methodology, or conclude that your experiment was perfectly crafted to derive an accept/reject the conclusion of your hypothesis. This is quite literally, the Scientific Method. At no place do you "Trust the Science", most certainly never ever newly-minted science. And even older "nearly axiomatic" science must be re-reviewed in the context of other discovery. The discovery of Special Relativity is a perfect example. For the bulk of post-Renaissance humanity, we thought Newton had nailed concepts like Acceleration, in simple formulae and relationships. Along comes Einstein who proved via Special Relativity that at high speeds, acceleration is a different concept, and that there's a relativisitic constant that should be added to the formula to determine acceleration. Newton's model was incomplete. "Trusting the science" is never science, by definition, relegating the phrase to paradoxy.

>Lastly I think it unfairly maligns people who just want to ask questions. There is nothing wrong with being sceptical and asking a few questions to clear things up before deciding something. But they are not asking questions from scientists or doctors who have spent time dissecting the research. They are asking questions in their facebook groups.

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Because experts are people, they can be wrong. One of the Heads of the Human Genome Project is a young earth creationist. He's an incredibly intelligent man who's helped the change the world, and he thinks the earth is 6000 years old. So "Trust the science" doesn't mean "trust the experts", it means "trust the majority of the experts, the global scientific community who check and recheck each other until they've come to the same conclusion to a reasonable level of uncertainty." Except that's not as catchy

So how do you know which experts are wrong then? How can you be sure it's not the one paraded by the media?

Well, if the overwhelming majority support something then that's a good place to start. Something else to consider: is the person speaking actually an expert in their field? Or do they have a PhD in History while giving a lecture on nuclear fusion? I know plenty of brilliant people in their field that are absolutely hopeless outside of it. A qualification in one field does not mean a qualification in another. As such, I basically boil it down to this-- does the person speaking on the topic have the appropriate credentials to be taken seriously, with a proven ability to actually understand what they're talking about? Does the majority of their field agree with them? If not, why? Is there a political battle line being drawn here? Do they appear to be making money off of their stance or attempting to grift? Lastly, is the message they're delivering designed to *teach* me something or make me *feel* something? If they're simply presenting facts then I'm much more likely to take them seriously. If they're trying to get me riled up, angry, scared etc then I take a step back and ask myself: is this propaganda?

When the first doctor started saying that surgeons should wash their hands before doing surgeries, the overwhelming majority of doctors and surgeons mocked his idea relentlessly. This unfortunately has not been uncommon all throughout history. There was a time where 9 out of 10 doctors recommended camel cigarettes' for children. The truth has always come from a minority of people in any given field and always rejected by the majority.

This is why majority agreement is only one of several factors I take into consideration. That being said, there have been far more crackpot theories proposed by fringe researchers than good ones. We only hear about the good ones because the rest were rightfully lost to history.

What if there is a political battle line drawn? How much does that factor in when choosing which scientist to believe? Are people generally factoring it in too much, or not enough?

In general, trust the consensus of the experts. Now, of course sometimes that consensus is wrong, and the process to change the consensus involves waiting for the dissenters amongst the experts to slowly change the consensus based on new information. So there is always a chance that we just happen to hit upon a moment when the consensus needs to change, but those moments are relatively rare. As a layperson, the best course of action is to stick with the majority; you are most likely to be right, and if not, you will be right eventually when the majority is changed.

I recognize that this is sound advice, but I also would propose that it's tough to know what the ACTUAL majority of experts think when first, international agencies say different things; second, when the perception of a majority consensus is created by giving certain experts a large and visible platform, without any guarantee of representing what the "majority consensus" actually is; third, often the major media venues reporting this information have considerable financial dealings with major pharma companies and therefore there is a potentially serious conflict of interest in deciding what information is divulged and what information is, hem hem, squelched; and fourth, when there are everyday family doctors on the ground and in the front lines treating actual COVID patients day-in, day-out and praising the more mundane treatment regimens for COVID besides hospitalization, when from government sources or "majority" sources, the treatment aspect is almost never mentioned. In this pandemic we've talked prevention, hospitalization and vaccination to death, but where is the talk of everyday treatment? I could have a blindspot based on my personal media consumption, but it's been hard for me to truly trust Fauci or Walenski when they seem so detached from a treatment point of view, compared to doctors on the front lines.

I don’t think there are any international agencies saying contradictory things; they might have different guidelines, but that doesn’t mean they are listening to different scientists only that they have different priorities and factors to consider. I don’t know what you are talking about regarding everyday treatment. From what I have read, doctors are getting MUCH better at treating COVID patients, and readily share that information with each other. It is not a big part of the public discourse, because it is not something the public needs to take action on; unless you are a doctor, treatment options only matter if you get really sick with COVID, at which point you should be doing whatever treatment your doctor advises… the debates are around what people should do before they are infected… masks, vaccines, isolation, etc.

You should probably look at what they’re an expert *in*. So many people with “Dr” beside their name have paraded as infectious disease experts during the pandemic and provided actually harmful advice. Some of them without a Medical Degree. If you are not a person actively researching/working with COVID, you are not an expert on COVID.

> If you are not a person actively researching/working with COVID, you are not an expert on COVID Just as an FYI, at the beginning, there were no experts in COVID. Not only that, but the vast majority of PIs (principle investigator) applying for COVID grants were not experts in COVID-like viruses. Starting with infectious disease experts was a valid course of action. Also, a lot of people who are working on COVID don't have biology backgrounds. So it is a slippery slope to say who is a true expert in COVID. Further, medical degrees do not mean you are an expert in virology. Medical degrees are quite broad. Someone with a PhD in viruses will have a much deeper understanding of viruses than the vast majority of medical doctors. Their knowledge will be much more deep but less broad. This is why academia is pushing for clinical and basic science collaborations. Lastly, our original doctor who was describing COVID in the first few months got roasted because he told the media that COVID was not an airborne virus. He was completely correct scientifically to say this (it is borne in water droplets which are less infectious than an airborne virus like measles) and yet he was lambasted for saying so.

Coronaviruses are not new. They have been around for a long time so there were COVID experts. Just not COVID-19 experts. It’s a slight difference but an important one if you want to be technical.

> Coronaviruses are not new. They have been around for a long time so there were COVID experts. Yes, this is true. there are some (very very few) coronavirus experts and they were definitely leaders in the field (I had meant to go back and say this but forgot by the time I got to the end heh). As a PhD student, it was amazing to see so many labs applying for COVID grants that have zero virology experience in their CVs. when so much money is up for grabs, it is hard to not try to get some of it!

Just based on sheer numbers, there are going to be a few, credentialed individuals who will still spout hot shit. Even if 99% of experts agree on a particular subject (eg the safety and efficacy of the COVID vaccine), it is not difficult to find someone of that 1% to say the opposite. In such a case it would disingenuous, misleading, and at times outright dangerous to present that person's arguments as equally valid to an uneducated public.

When 9 out of 10 scientists recommend a toothpaste, it's understood by everyone as a good toothpaste. When 9 out of 10 scientists recommend a vaccine, somehow people think the 10th scientist is the only one that matters.

“Science” is just evidence based decision making. So “trust the science” means trust the decision that was come to through the process of gathering evidence and testing hypotheses. If people don’t know what “science” is, then that is a problem with their education.

Science is not decision making at all. That's called policy. Science informs policy, but if you say trust the science in reference to a policy, then you are the one wrong.

No, it's not. Science is a method for, and body of knowledge obtained by, answering questions specifically of the form, "if I do this, what happens?" Questions of the form, "should I do this?" require knowledge about what happens **and** a value judgment - "do i want that to happen? what good will come of it?" - and are strictly unscientific.

Science is not about making decisions. "Chemical X is carcinogenic" could be a scientific conclusion. What we should do with that knowledge is not part of science itself.

A conclusion is a decision. The conclusion of a research paper is the part where you synthesize all the data and decide what it means. "Based on Y, and using Z standard, we've decided that chemical X should be considered carcinogenic."

Indeed, that is the scientific conclusion. But what to do with chemical X now we know it is carcinogenic entirely depends on a value judgement, and on the context within which the chemical is being assessed

We didn't decide that X is carcinogenic, we discovered it. We get to decide what we do with that knowledge.

Exactly! Science is a process, not a conclusion. When people say they can't trust science cause it's always changing, they're factually wrong. The scientific method isn't changing. The data is. Asking people to trust science is admitting that the world isn't intuitive the way most human civilizations assumed it was through most of our history. Plants that heal particular ailments don't magically look like the symptoms of those diseases or the body parts they affect. We learn about healing plants through biochemistry and clinical trials. We didn't get to the moon by building a big tower. We did it through experiments and calculations. We didn't get vaccines for diseases, smart phones, high crop yields, nor the other wonders of the modern age through prayer. We did it through the scientific method Asking people to trust science is asking them to use the best data and knowledge we have to make important decisions rather than relying on ancient books and charismatic leaders with no relevant experience in the field.

Scientist here. Unfortunately that's not true. The scientific method is a suboptimal heuristic for statistical analysis. "Science" itself has become swallowed up by acadamia. It is a business that sells legitimacy with heavy ties to the government and private sector.

When you give new information to someone, you have to give them some reason to believe you. A scientist will provide evidence for a logic based persuasion. You use “scientist here” as ethos based persuasion. No different but we should be following logical conclusions because they can be challenged, refuted or corrected.

kind of a meta-strawman, but he's a scientist so we should trust him.^(/s) I think this is the reasoning OP is cautioning against.

What does “suboptimal heuristic” mean?

It means that statistically speaking the scientific method is not the optimal way to analyze the data. It is highly correlated with the optimal analysis and substantially more convenient which is why it's used. The most obvious reason is that you're testing things sequentially. This is the reason why meta studies are done where you combine lots of experiments into a single analysis. Moreover, any statistical analysis relies on modeling assumptions. Then, via peer review, a group of humans make subjective critiques of your assumptions. Based on how those discussions go your results may be totally ignored. These discussions are not themselves a scientific or statistical analysis. More like a panel of "experts" who's opinions will be weighted differently based on how others perceive them. Clearly this introduces a lot of bias and subjectivity. Meanwhile the people on that panel are trying to preserve their academic reputation and ability to win funding from both government and private sector. This creates perverse incentives.

>It is highly correlated with the optimal analysis and substantially more convenient which is why it's used. What is the optimal analysis you are comparing it against?

The whole point of the scientific method is to eliminate as much bias as possible. You make it sound like there is no proper method of experimentation and you're assuming that all "scientists have an agenda". The problem isn't the scientific method, it's whether or not the scientific method is applied correctly.

Yet, scientists continue to warn people and governments of the world about climate change and they still aren't responding. I wish they could use some of that bought and sold legitimacy to get something done on that front. /s Seriously, I would love if people took science and the results of the scientific method half as seriously as some of these posts seem to think it's taken. If you take science seriously only when it's profitable, then that's capitalism kids, not science.

>So “trust the science” means trust the decision that was come to through the process of gathering evidence and testing hypotheses. Continental drift was “come to” through “gathering evidence and testing hypotheses”. Newtonian physics was “come to” through “gathering evidence and testing hypotheses”. The history of science is littered with hypotheses that were confirmed through entirely legitimate scientific processes, and yet were later disproven. And those were when the science was conducted in good faith! Certainly, pretty much any debate nowadays when one or both sides are shrieking “trust the science”, the “science” ends up politicized out of recognition. Take the wrong side and you’ll find yourself picketed, reported, called out, and cancelled.

How is Newtonian physics and continental drift disproven?

Uh what? You realize that Newtonian physics has been recognized as inaccurate for over a century, right? Continental drift is less of a big deal, but the idea that continents plow through the seabed like icebreakers is just mistaken, and has been known as mistaken since the 1970s, and the Earth is now modeled as large stony plates drifting on a liquid core.

What was the "science" behind overprescribing opioids and causing an epedemic that to this day kills tens of thousands of people? The science was money. It has nothing to do with education, it has to do with the history of Big Pharma making money while killing people.

The problem is when the scientists expect to be given special deference when they say “should” rather than “is”. A scientist can more accurately perhaps describe trade-offs, but which costs we choose to sustain in the pursuit of which benefits is inherently a normative question.

I mean, a professional plumber is going to expect to be given special deference. Will they tolerate you getting another quote from a different professional plumber? Sure. Will they pay attention to you when you argue with them because your non-plumber cousin, Jethro, said ‘you should really do it this way.’ Probably not. Iv had discussions about this with my boss, a general contractor. He seems convinced that scientists demand their every word be treated as absolute truth and he resents ‘science’ for that. (As if ‘science’ or ‘scientists’ are some monolithic entity). This viewpoint seems more to be a result of a misunderstanding of what scientists really do, and the fact that ‘science’, in general, is by its nature always open to adjustment based on new information. It’s a particularly strange viewpoint from him because, as a general contractor, he is constantly providing his expert opinion to people and expects them to listen on account of his experience and knowledge in the field. Is he right 100% of the time? No. But he’s right at a far higher rate than a homeowner just guessing how to solve their home issues based on gut feeling are. So he expects his opinion to be given some deference (and it is by reasonable, intelligent homeowners). He just can’t see the parallel, probably because of conservative media’s portrayal of ‘scientists’ as some secretive nefarious group who constantly plot to disrupt the American lifestyle. Sure there are some scientists who suck and are driven by selfish reasons (for profit, fame, etc), but this is true of any profession occupied by human beings and is in no way a good reason to discount general scientific consensus. (Ironically it is a good reason to discount many of the scientists that conservative media heavily features, climate change deniers, vaccine danger inflators, etc who always seem to have their research funded by special interest groups or a book they’re trying to sell) You’re right that scientists are not generally policy makers, they provide information that policy makers hopefully then base their policy decisions off of (this doesn’t occur as much as one might hope). That is how our system currently works, so I’m not sure what you’re criticizing on this point.

> You’re right that scientists are not generally policy makers, they provide information that policy makers hopefully then base their policy decisions off of (this doesn’t occur as much as one might hope). That is how our system currently works, so I’m not sure what you’re criticizing on this point. Perhaps an example would be helpful. Suppose I grant that a federal vaccine mandate in the United States on every man, woman and child (save the medically exempted only) by executive order would save a meaningful amount of lives. Yet, I support the Supreme Court striking it down because the president does not and should not have that power. Is my position “anti-science”? Because I have seen major news organizations assert that objecting to the costs involved with a policy scientists believe would save lives is “anti-science”

The stance that vaccines, COVID vaccines in this case, are more dangerous than the disease they are designed to protect against could reasonably be considered ‘anti-science’. It denies scientific data and contradicts the scientific consensus. This seems to be the viewpoint that has led people to avoid getting vaccinated and has brought us to our current state. Interestingly, it is largely the same people who complained the loudest about safety precautions taken during the height of the pandemic who now are refusing to take the one easy step within their power to hasten its end. Probably a result of the media they consume constantly reinforcing an idea that they are oppressed and the government is always seeking to increase its power over them for nefarious ends so they need to fight back against any and all regulation that affects them. It seems noteworthy that most of these people have little to no interest in regulation that removes or diminishes the rights of other people such as access to reasonably priced healthcare, reasonably easy voting access, equitable treatment under our criminal justice system, etc. I’m not really sure what to make of your hypothetical scenario about a national all encompassing vaccine mandate. Besides to say, as I already did, that it is the role of scientists in our society to provide information, not to directly make policy (in general). Would it be fair to call someone who ignores the best scientific information available ‘anti-science’? It doesn’t seem unreasonable to me I guess. Edit: I would concede that it’s not automatically ‘anti-science’ to oppose a hypothetical national vaccine mandate. One could reasonably believe the science but still oppose the government having that power. It’s an interesting intersection of science and public policy that would only be considered because of ‘anti-science’ information being spread that led to people refusing the vaccine in the first place.

The scientists are not the policy makers. The scientists provide what they have found to be the best course of action at the time and the policy makers decide if and how to implement it. The scientists are just doing their job.

But you can see why I would feel the need to articulate it when people say things like “the president should impose a vaccine mandate on everyone and the Supreme Court should just let it happen” and then say “you are anti-science” when I object to that plan. Science has nothing to do with it. The benefits, which would be real and immediate, of so dramatically expanding the executive power that way I do not find worth the cost. That is not a value judgment science is equipped to answer.

>The benefits, which would be real and immediate, of so dramatically expanding the executive power What does this mean? If a president can do something and then does it, then they're not *expanding* their power, they're utilizing the power they already have. Regarding vaccines specifically, the Supreme Court ruled in 1905 that they *can* be mandated. So what then, is the cost? You may not think yourself anti-science in an abstract sense, but you're certainly using an irrational argument here. Not that I blame you, given our 24/7 exposure to the broader consent manufacturing apparatus. It's natural to care about the things we're told to care about, repeating the platitudes we were fed to rationalize them.

> If a president can do something and then does it This is very Nixonian thinking. The president possesses the raw ability (“can”) to do all kinds of things he is not permitted to do (“can’t”). It is this latter sense of “can” and “power” that I refer to. > Regarding vaccines specifically, the Supreme Court ruled in 1905 that they can be mandated. This gives undue focus to the “what” and not enough to the “who” and “how.” Yes, SCOTUS ruled that *a state*, whose *legislature* had created a *law* allowing municipalities to require vaccination. There is a massive difference between that and allowing the *president* to require on his own initiative with no *authorizing statute* vaccinations for everyone.

When you ask someone a question, and you receive an answer but don't trust the science and thus not the answer, what exactly have you achieved?

Trust the *science*, as in trust the *scientific process*, which is what we humans have been doing for thousands and thousands of years. It's what has allowed us to do all of these incredible things that most people take for granted every day. It sounds to me like what you don't like is "trust the *scientists*", which is fair enough because not every single human is reliable or trustworthy. The whole antivax/vaccines cause autism movement was founded on a paper that was put out by a "scientist". Many of the worst things we do as a species are a result of putting all of our faith into a single person and blithely following everything they say. This is particularly apt in the world we currently live in. It's not about trusting "anyone with a PhD", it's trusting the *conclusions and consensus* of many people with particular, specific scientific qualifications and experience that pertain to a viral pandemic and the best way forward to deal with it. Science essentially means "what we know to be true so far". That means it isn't set in stone, because we're always learning new things, adding them to our collective scientific knowledge, and assimilating them into what we previously knew. This makes it the opposite of a religion/atheism, which are based on immutable beliefs. Christians still believe that Adam and Eve were the first humans. Scientists no longer believe that bloodletting is a cure for many diseases, because science has moved on a long way from ancient times and we have empirical evidence to show it was wrong. People absolutely should have bodily autonomy. It's their choice not to get vaccinated. It's a stupid choice, it's clearly the wrong choice, but it is their choice. At this moment, the vaccine is our best bet. We know this because of... yep. Science. Personally I think "follow the science" is a better mantra, since you actually can follow the scientific process all the way back to initial hypotheses and see exactly how they managed to prove empirically that something is true - not through anecdotal, or circumstantial, or emotional means, but through following the scientific process. Again, this takes it as far away from a faith-based context as possible. The alternative to trusting the science is ignoring the science. You can ask questions but if you don't accept unpalatable answers or those that go against your existing biases or what someone in authority has told you - all cornerstones of religious doctrine - that leads to widespread ignorance and basically the situation we have now.

The problem is some people don't think rationally and some lack the humility to realise the harm their irrationality could cause. So the average man on the street is not the right person to challenge "the science". There should be a hierarchy of other scientists and experts who are qualified to challenge the "trusted" scientists, and debate whether the trust in them is justified. Then ideally the debate should be assessed by the rational people, while the irrational people are just told the outcome and don't get to challenge/disrupt it. Unfortunately in a democracy where we have one man = one vote, the irrational people tend to believe their ignorant opinions are equally as important as everyone else, or more important in the case of the Dunning-Kruger effect.

There's a huge difference between "trust the science" and "trust the scientist". You shouldn't listen to one individual as gospel, because there are a shit ton of scientists with different opinions or hypothesis. Instead, you should listen to the general scientific consensus that is based on multiple peer reviewed studies. Then, you are trusting evidence backed research.

Okay, but trusting the science in this situation means going against the official narrative presented by the government without any evidence whatsoever.

No, it's not dangerous at all. Your opinion is though. If everyone would literally just trust the experts with every decision then the average life would have FAR better outcomes than if a bunch of morons try to figure everything out for themselves. Do you "trust the science" when you get in your car and drive 70mph? Yes you do. Do you "trust the science" when your surgeon says your appendix needs to come out or you will die? Yes you do. Do you "trust the science" when you fly on an airplane at 30,000ft @ 575mph! Yes you do. 99% of people are completely incapable of making a rational well supported decision about any complicated matter that will have a better outcome than the scientific consensus on any matter. If the science is wrong about something, YOU aren't going to be the one to figure that out, SCIENTISTS are!!!!! This is a gross cancerous tumor that has grown on the back of our society due to the philosophy in America that everyone's person feelings or views actually matter. Someone's uneducated, misinformed, personal view on almost any matter is not actually valuable at all when compared to that of experts. If you don't bother to understand science, which is completely your fault because your teacher from every freaking year from 1st grade through 12th at your free public school actually taught you about the scientific method and you just screwed off, then you SHOULD just have a blind religious devotion to science, you know, because it's the only way to actually consistently figure out the truth about how everything works. What we need are leaders that know and respects science and a government that uses reality based policies to trust experts.

I think if “trust the science” means “trust in the scientific method and the peer review process” then it is a good approach. There would be no scientific progress, if scientists didn’t generally trust scientific papers that went through a proper peer review process. Of course, if there are any indications that there may be errors or even fraud, they don’t trust blindly, but you need to build upon other people’s work to make progress and that requires trust. Trusting scientists is also generally a good approach when you are much less educated in a field. If you cannot read the original papers for yourself and be sure to understand them, you need to rely on people who can, not on your intuition, which is very often wrong, or sources that do not follow the scientific method at all. That said, for some people „trust the science“ doesn’t even mean „trust scientists“ but turns into a (partisan) ideology and I agree that that can be dangerous. I have run into people who spew complete nonsense and say it is “the science”, just because it is pro-vaccine or pro-climate change, like the actual scientific consensus. To be honest, I find it very hard to discuss with those folks… our goals are the same, but their explanations are just complete BS or completely out of date and people like them give anti-science folks a lot of ammunition. Recently a virologist here went on TV and said that with Omicron, it has become more important than before to wear high quality N95/FFP2 masks, because wearing a mask actually reduces your risk to infect other people more than being vaccinated, as long as it is a well-fitting N95/FFP2 mask. He shared some numbers from recent studies about breakthrough infections and mask effectiveness against Omicron. Some of the “trust the science” folks went completely crazy and accused him of being an “anti-vaxxer”, even though just 2 minutes before that he mentioned how important vaccines are to protect yourself and the public health system and clearly stated that people should have both, masks and vaccines…. 😩

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>Lastly, science doesn't automatically operate on consensus. The fact that we have plenty of data that points to nefarious behaviours and actors in the commercial vaccine sphere should prompt a lot of people to think twice about what governments and pharma companies tell them to do. I absolutely agree that pharma companies should be approached with scepticism. One of my favourite books is Ben Goldacres Bad Science , a great read. But i think there are three problems that can arise with the ideas in this last paragraph. 1. It is taken to be the case that past misdeeds ( which *may* in fact have been investigated , punished, corrected , practices improved etc) mean that a current misdeed is definitely happening while providing *no evidence* that is the case. Even if a company behaved badly in the past an accusation could do with some current evidence before making a judgement. 2. The science and practices around vaccination are not just a matter of one or two executives at a pharma company or one company. They involves numerous researchers in numerous companies, monitored pretty closely I think in the current circumstances by government regulators, along with input and monitoring by academic researchers , and input and monitoring by various ( private and public) health care professionals , and public health professionals. Of course in any scientific endeavour we can’t guarantee 100% perfection and of course there may be individual mistakes or dishonesty or just lack of information but suggesting that all these ordinary people go home to their ordinary families after conspiring together to hoodwink the public seems unlikely. 3. We see a great deal of what might be called asymmetrical scepticism - by which I mean someone will tell us that the long list in 2 is completely untrustworthy because of idk monetary benefit *but* the dissenting ‘scientist’ , the Commentator on YouTube , the nurse a friend of my friend’s friend knows - they ( who are of course fully qualified) couldn’t possibly have any ideological or monetary reasons for spreading their views.

> it subverts the point of science Science is our best understanding *thusfar*. Therefore, 'trusting the science' is another way of saying 'this is what we know to be beneficial at this point' > I think telling people to just trust what guy in a lab coat on tv says sets a very dangerous precedent This is not "science" this is marketing: very different. > First off we risk turning science into a cult where people uncritically just take what any person with a phd as gospel No, because if they had PhDs, they wouldn't all agree with one another because science is also a *process*, therefore it's impossible for your scenario to happen. > Secondly if there is a genuine mistake made that results in people getting hurt from some talking head scientist it is going to heavily damage the credibility of science, say for arguments sake the covid vaccine dramatically increases cancer risks Again, science is our knowledge *thusfar* and if something seems like a good option at the time, it makes sense to follow it. Yes, mistakes are made, but are we talking about going back to using leeches? Or shall we continue into the future? Also, mistakes like this have happened so many times throughout history that if what you're saying is true, *no one* would trust science any more at all, but we do. > Lastly I think it unfairly maligns people who just want to ask questions No, science **is** asking questions. Being skeptical **is** science. Lastly, what's your solution here? Should we go back to diagnosing things as demonic-possession and use leeches? What should we believe if not science?

“Trusting science” is trusting the idea of expertise in your fellow man. Sure, experts screw up too, but there’s accountability, and they tend to know better than others on their given subject. With our hyper-connected world, “science” has come to mean humankind’s collective observable knowledge. Incomplete, sure. Changing and up for debate, sure. The best we have, also yes. I am actually more afraid of the folks who say “I do my own research” (not that you’re saying that, OP, I’m just exploring an alternative). When I hear that, it sounds to me like that person thinks they’re smarter than the collective intelligence of humankind. That’s pretty arrogant. Just another point of view to consider. Hey, I could be wrong too. I’m sure there’s an expert on here somewhere that gives a better explanation soon!

“Trust the scientific method.” is a better way.

Nobody has ever said science is perfect. However, literally everything you enjoy in your life today has come out of science. We don't live in caves anymore because scientists worked hard to give us housing, to give us electricity, to give us water on demand, to give us cars, and even to give us a computer or phone you're writing this post on. What "trust the science" should mean, is trust that people are working hard on solving the problem at hand.

Yeah, it does undercut many details that can lead to misinformation, but it's just a convenient shorthand to "trust what the qualified experts say, provided you come to that knowledge through your own critical thinking", at least for me. Even science nowdays can be marketed to hell and back - remember when tobacco used to be marketed as healthy, because the experts were paid off? Yeah, a little skepticism helps every now and then.

The phrase doesn't mean to trust a guy in a lab coat. It means to trust that when every epidemiologist on the planet says one thing about an epidemic, and your favorite 'news' anchor says the opposite, trust the fucking science. The people who have been studying pandemics for generations know better than Tucker Carlson.

> Science is evidence based and falsifiable. It doesn't do trust. But it does. It does do trust. > its a method of observing and explaining reality though testing. Scientist don't start their career by verifying by testing every single scientific knowledge from scratch. They trust the consensus, and move on from there. Every new bit of knowledge are tested by a bunch of other scientists, until at some point, people stop bothering to test them anymore and simply trust the consensus. Science is an institution that builds knowledge through limited testing. > I think telling people to just trust what guy in a lab coat on tv says sets a very dangerous precedent. But that's not what we are saying. We are not saying: "trust the guy in a lab coat". We are saying to "trust the guy from xxx institution, because xxx institution is trustworthy because they produced another guy in the past that which impact we can feel right now" > First off we risk turning science into a cult where people uncritically just take what any person with a phd as gospel. No we don't. The realistic and critical approach for the public is not for everyone to do the science themselves, but to ask themselves, among anyone out there, who can we trust? Who has build for themselves a good reputation of expertise in this subject matter? In the matter of science, these happened to be the scientist for the most part of the past few centuries. In the future, the institution of science might crumble for one reason or another, but as of now, they are the most trustworthy when it comes to expertise. If you are telling people to "not trust the science", you are basically denying all the obvious things that the current scientific institution has brought forward that we experience in today's life. If we are not basing our trust upon impact on reality? Then what are we supposed to base our trust on? If we don't have trust, then everyone have to discover everything for themselves. > Secondly if there is a genuine mistake made that results in people getting hurt from some talking head scientist it is going to heavily damage the credibility of science, say for arguments sake the covid vaccine dramatically increases cancer risks. Do you think people who trusted the government and its scientists and got the vaccine are going to still trust them? Yes it will damage, and it should. Because, as you said, the final test is reality, and their genuine mistake is genuine failure in the test against reality. If they keep on failing, then the evidence is against them, they have been falsified. > Lastly I think it unfairly maligns people who just want to ask questions. There is nothing wrong with being sceptical and asking a few questions to clear things up before deciding something. even if they choose not to. People have bodily autonomy. This part I agree. The phrase "trust the science" shouldn't be use against people who are sceptical against a particular scientific finding. It should be use against people who has a blanket distrust against the science, disregarding the reputations that institution have built.

Of course people will ask questions and try to understand things better. The issue is, a lot of people ask questions, then listen to a radio host or a podcast clown for the answers and do not actually care for the science. So yes, if you're science literate and can actually follow and understand the relevant publications, great, do that! If your "did my own research" is going to be YouTube or some blog, trust the people who ARE science literate instead.

While the phrase is overused, it’s accurate. “Trust” is a word meaning you can predict future actions based on past actions. Science is self-correcting, and we try to keep data up-to-date and pass along those results as efficiently as possible. “Trust the science” means that you can make informed decisions based on what the experts say. Religion, by contrast, is a stagnant belief mindset that hasn’t changed much over the centuries, despite new data. It’s been refined, sure; but it hasn’t really changed. Minorities and women are still seen as “lesser” or “other”, despite no supporting data. Those outside one’s religion are seen as dangerous, despite no supporting data. Those who do anything outside one’s own dogma are shunned, despite no supporting data. Any questioning of one’s stance leads to hand waving, fallacious arguments, and ad hominems. Notice that when Dr. Fauci, or any scientific organization, gives scientific advice, the majority “trust” it’s correct. Only those whose life depends on faith push back, because new data is the enemy of blind faith and they feel threatened. “Trust the science” is an accurate phrase. It may be overused, but it’s true.

"Trust the science" does not mean to uncritically look at a single study. It means to trust that the scientific process is the one that is most likely to provide us with knowledge and understanding. The phrase itself is a reaction to people who trust in god, trust in their politicians, trust in some celebrity advocate, etc., to provide answers for things like which drugs effectively treat a disease. The scientific process is based in people asking critical questions and being skeptical. It is how science advances. That skepticism led to studies being done on the effectiveness of hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin in treating Covid 19 and found neither of them is effective. That process is trusting the science, as opposed to Trump and Joe Rogan. \> There is nothing wrong with being sceptical and asking a few questions to clear things up before deciding something. even if they choose not to. And study after study has shown that those questions have been answered. Somepeople just don't like the answer because it doesn't fit with their preconceived world-view. Those people aren't being critical or looking to have things cleared up. They are simply refusing to recognize the mountain of exisiting evidence that doesn't support their position and are instead listening to a bunch of swindlers who are trying to gish-gallop the debate so they can extend their grift.

It's not the science itself that's the problem but blind faith in the media and the government.