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by fatsdomino001 1856 days ago
Are you suggesting that the scientific method is actually a popularity contest? Seems dubious.
1 comments

Yes. Who else besides the community of scientists is supposed to interpret the evidence and decide whether the earth really goes around the sun? The Pope?
The answer is, anyone who can. If you’re a random statistics professor but if you’ve somehow managed to build the capability to speak coherently about physics and mostly know what you’re talking about, you should be commenting on physics papers, regardless of the fact you’re “not a physicist,” because of your pedigree. You might find a serious mathematical error. The thing is, we tend to call people who do that in a way that’s good, “physicists,” so it’s a chicken-and-egg situation.