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Re:Why “Trusting the Science” Is Complicated by AstralStorm on Sunday February 14, 2021 @09:44PM (#26138488)
The bigger problem is that in many fields, even if you can read and understand the paper, it is not actionable, much less verifiable by you. It may be incomplete, hide an asterisk as some other branch may mention, or be altogether written as to be unverifiable.

The last bit is especially common in the most important but soft sciences like psychology, sociology, economy, history or anthropology...

Or worse, it may be in principle verifiable but only at high expense, or the results of the analysis are incomplete or buried.

Re:Why “Trusting the Science” Is Complicated by ntsplnkv2 on Monday February 15, 2021 @09:26AM (#26142990)
Reading cutting edge papers is not something the layman can do, it's a waste of time.

This is why we have things like the CDC offer guidelines, taking into account the changes and growth in our knowledge base. Knowledge is collected and verified over time and eventually becomes distilled in easy to understand ways to the public.