Ok, but I do not have access to labratories or ways to run my proper experiments. Am I supposed to just stay on the fence about everything that I can’t personally test, or should I trust in the consensus from the scientific community regarding stuff like climate change, virology, etc.?
The proper scientific answer to that question is not to trust or not trust. You should absolutely do your own testing, whether that means asking good questions of the experts, reading the existing research carefully, up to and including reproducing the experiment yourself where practicable.
If an experiment is impossible to reproduce, then you should be asking yourself what good its results are.
That is an impossible standard for folks to live by. I can’t do that, and neither can you.
When I say I “trust in science” I’m talking about the process and the method. Which means I trust the results when people follow that process. i also trust that the answers may change if there’s new information, because that’s part of the process.
I don’t have the equipment to perform all those experiments. Even if I did, I wouldn’t trust the results because I don’t have the education to set up, run, and interpret an experiment more complicated than improving my chili recipe.
So, in much the same way that I trust a mechanic to fix my transmission and a.plumber to fix my pipes, I trust a scientist to follow the scientific method.
Ok, but I do not have access to labratories or ways to run my proper experiments. Am I supposed to just stay on the fence about everything that I can’t personally test, or should I trust in the consensus from the scientific community regarding stuff like climate change, virology, etc.?
The proper scientific answer to that question is not to trust or not trust. You should absolutely do your own testing, whether that means asking good questions of the experts, reading the existing research carefully, up to and including reproducing the experiment yourself where practicable.
If an experiment is impossible to reproduce, then you should be asking yourself what good its results are.
That is an impossible standard for folks to live by. I can’t do that, and neither can you.
When I say I “trust in science” I’m talking about the process and the method. Which means I trust the results when people follow that process. i also trust that the answers may change if there’s new information, because that’s part of the process.
I don’t have the equipment to perform all those experiments. Even if I did, I wouldn’t trust the results because I don’t have the education to set up, run, and interpret an experiment more complicated than improving my chili recipe.
So, in much the same way that I trust a mechanic to fix my transmission and a.plumber to fix my pipes, I trust a scientist to follow the scientific method.
That’s what “trusting science” means.