you wind up in situations like the current one we're having with climate change
Funny that you mention that.
I consider myself a reasonably well educated layman with a few functioning brain cells. I've taken an interest in the global warming claims and did a fair amount of digging (which involved reading original papers and other relevant stuff like Climategate materials). I'll skip through all the bits not relevant to this thread but I'll point out that the end result is that my respect for "climate science" dropped considerably and I became what you'd probably describe as a "climate sceptic".
Given the rather sorry state of medical science (see Ioannidis, etc.), another area I have some interest in, I must say that nowadays when people tell me I must blindly trust "science" because I cannot possibly understand the gnostic knowledge of these high priests, well, let's just say I'm not very receptive to this idea.
Regardless of whether you personally agree with the consensus on climate change, the fact is that most politicians in office are not scientists and do not have the requisite background to even begin reading climate change papers and materials. Yet they must often make decisions on climate change issues. I'd much prefer that they took the consensus scientific opinion rather than making up their own ill-formed beliefs. If the scientific opinion turns out to be wrong, I will pin the full blame on the scientists, not the decision makers.
And, as I'm saying, thi...
If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), then it goes here.