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I am not sure why do you think there is only one way to increase trust in a claim made by unknown people? I don't trust "famous" people. I trust that it's unlikely for a large group of "famous" (eg experts in relevant fields, which is a more specific interpretatiin of "famous"), unrelated people to not trust each other, and only once they reach a common ground, would my trust of their extraordinary claim rise. Yes, I wouldn't trust Einstein proclaiming speed of light is finite, but when corroborated with independent claims of experiments from Michelson proving likewise, and others from 30 years ago, I would. Basically, if it's too few people, I'd question how did others, unrelated people not see it: science mostly progresses these days when the body of knowledge is such that simply the next thing is in front of us, and multiple people simultaneously "discover" it. As it's many people making similar claims, I'd start considering it seriously. This is how science works, and I am happy to follow that with media reports as well. It's not at all backwards IMO. Sure, if I was working on a hypothesis, I would certainly venture into less trusty sources, but I would need to be ready to accept for my hypothesis to be disproven too. |