[nelaboras]

I am 100% s believer in science but the challenge is the signal to noise ratio - there's so much outputs that even niche experts struggle to follow their own field; for the population it's really hard to follow what is or isn't right. And often the advice/results are contradictory due to different focus. Nutrition research suggests to eat frequent small meals (is this still the right advice?), but also that fasting can be helpful. And if I stick to the small meals schedule my dentist will tell me that snacking is not good for the teeth as it keeps the mouth constantly acidic.

Similarly at policy level: there is much research, but often its application is very much dependent on the frame (eg city vs region vs national scale; strong-trust Nordic country context vs low-trust Balkans or US; etc).

In the end you need the policy decision to be well reasoned and evidence-based, but this is often difficult to manage and even more difficult to communicate (especially in a polarized society like the US where everyone is either friend or enemy in the political space).