[lmm]

> We need to work on improving the trust of our scientific institutions, so that we can continue living our lives and focusing our efforts on our specializations.

Putting it that way is putting the cart before the horse. Our institutions need to become more trustworthy, then we'll be able to trust them more. Even then, I suspect a certain level of scepticism is needed to keep them honest.

[cle]

That is a great way to improve trust. There are other ways as well, and we should work on them all.

[lmm]

Not necessarily. If our scientific institutions are actually untrustworthy, then the public is correct to mistrust them, and acting to artificially increase public trust in them would be counterproductive.

[cle]

There are a lot of people out there with unfounded mistrust. Some of it is justified, some of it is not. These things are not mutually exclusive.