Is it a bad idea to broadly tell people to just "trust the science"? I think so.
The reason stems from my thinking that all of the following are important and true (and too often overlooked) regarding science:
1) A lot of science is real AND valuable to society.
2) A lot of "science" is actually fake - see, for instance, a decent percentage of papers in psychology 15 years ago.
3) "Science" (as an approach to knowledge discovery) is one of humanity's greatest inventions - but in pra...
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pragmatism
Three motivations for believing
There are three different motivations for belief, and it's important to distinguish between them.
1) Belief because you think something's true.
For instance, you may think that the evidence supports the idea that you will eventually find love, or you may feel convinced by logical arguments you've heard in favor of god's existence.
2) Belief because you think it's useful to believe.
Regardless of whether you predict something's true, you can predict that believing it will...
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