I have an engineering degree, so I know my share of physics. I can smell bullshit about mechanics and engineering no doubt. I can gather the evidence, I know where to find it, how to judge the quality and conduct experiments to test my theories. But my knowledge is limited to my domain.
My knowledge of biology or climate science is limited. I’m not an expert nor do I try to be an expert. I don’t have the time or the skill set together better evidence comb through the different theories and the mountains of data to come to my own conclusions. I must trust the scientists of their fields because they trust me with my knowledge. It’s impossible to be an expert in multiple domains in today’s world.
It’s unreasonable to ask to draw conclusions of highly complex systems that most people will need, at minimum, a domain specific university degree to understand.
In reality, no one can be trusted, because we’re all just apes, some of us apes have a degree. We’re not some enlightened species, we’re full of biases and unconscious flaws and agendas that are really hard to impossible to avoid.
But still, some are better than others at identifying these, and some are better than others at mitigating them. Scientists in general are probably a group better at those things.
