[secstate]

I think the problem is less that atheists take the word of scientists at their word, so much as people assume that because something is common, it is either safe, or true. It's the weird intersection of knowledge and belief.

Here in coastal communities many people are still allowed to do "overboard discharge," or dumping raw sewage into the ocean. The understanding being the ocean is so big we couldn't possibly hurt the ecosystem. Here in Maine, there have actually been many deeply flawed scientific studies that justified these policies as scientifically true.

Now, of course, we know how fragile the ocean and, indeed, any ecosystem is. But common belief is that science has shown that dumping your shit in the ocean is environmentally okay and that is used to justify a convenient action. Even though the action hardly passes the (literal) smell test.