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In reply to the discussion: RFK Jr. in interview with Scripps News: 'Trusting the experts is not science' [View all]dpibel
(3,633 posts)If you catch a scientist saying, "Oh, I just trust the experts," that's a problem.
But for lay people to say, "Yeah, it's peer reviewed and supported by a broad consensus, but I know better," has nothing at all to do with science. You honestly think that, for instance, "the path of scientific progress" has been stifled because a bunch of bozos think they know something about vaccines?
Science is adversarial, by nature. The know-nothings who claim that scientists march in blind lockstep simply haven't been around scientists, whose greatest delight is proving the consensus wrong. But they have to actually do it, rather than just holding a contrarian opinion.
As for your belief that minority opinion is often right, I think you'd have to give me a little more than your say-so on that. The fact that it's so remarkable when the "minority opinion" (an odd choice of words when discussing science) is right rather calls that statement into question. I suspect you could marshal a handful of instances where the minority opinion was right (Galileo, for starters, doesn't really count, since he wasn't challenging science). But the idea that the minority position on a scientific proposition is as likely to be correct as the position supported by research, peer review, and consensus is, with all due respect, mistaken.
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