A peer-reviewed, journal-published, replicated report is worth far more than what you see with your own eyes.
Including my viewing of the report itself? That would be silly. Later Eliezer says that the fact that it is a good idea to trust in science is "pragmatically true," but probably better to say it's a good rule of thumb. I agree with the spirit of the post, but it goes so far into the hyperbolic that it undermines some other aspects of rationality:
What about the claim that 2 + 2 = 5?
Science cannot prove a nonsensical claim. If I believe I read that as a proved result in an authoritative scientific paper, the probability that there was a miscommunication somewhere eclipses everything else. What about the claim "A and not-A"?
Today's post, Some Claims Are Just Too Extraordinary was originally published on 20 January 2007. A summary (taken from the LW wiki):
Discuss the post here (rather than in the comments to the original post).
This post is part of the Rerunning the Sequences series, where we'll be going through Eliezer Yudkowsky's old posts in order so that people who are interested can (re-)read and discuss them. The previous post was A Fable of Science and Politics, and you can use the sequence_reruns tag or rss feed to follow the rest of the series.
Sequence reruns are a community-driven effort. You can participate by re-reading the sequence post, discussing it here, posting the next day's sequence reruns post, or summarizing forthcoming articles on the wiki. Go here for more details, or to have meta discussions about the Rerunning the Sequences series.