The Greeks knew the Earth was round because they could look at ships appearing over the horizon and observe that the tops of their sails would appear first. Eratosthenes was further able to calculate the radius of the Earth to a decent first approximation simply by using the shadows cast by two sticks at reference locations. If they could do it, you can do it too[0].
The idea that you "cannot verify" is a very pedantic comment, and using flat Earth as a basis only makes it more comical. Of course you can't know anything "with absolute truth", but nobody cares about that. The relative distribution of evidence strongly disconfirms some hypotheses, there is already a culture of strong distrust and independent verification in the hard sciences (see the LK-99 saga), and you can rely on the long-term output of that process in the same way you can rely on your GPS to just work without needing to independently launch your own satellites. Needing to be your own scientist now is like needing to be your own farmer: completely unnecessary for most people.
[0] Yes, flat earthers claim these results are spurious because of optical illusions caused by hot air or the like. But the relative distribution of the evidence for _that_ hypothesis is pretty darn slim, which only furthers my point.
>Needing to be your own scientist now is like needing to be your own farmer: completely unnecessary for most people.
I wish I could tell that you were right. But you are wrong. This tell me more about how much you have spent time on a even a simple subject like food if you lived in USA. How can I even have a more nuanced conversation on a complicated subject?
Yet despite your inability to independently and directly verify it (which actually you could do), it’s foolish to look at all available evidence and come to the conclusion “we don’t know,” or “we shouldn’t make engineering or policy decisions on the basis of this hypothesis.”
> No you cannot, unless you are willing to spend a few years on it.
Can you or can’t you?
In any case, even if you couldn’t, it would still be foolish to look at all available evidence and arrive at “we don’t know” or “we ought not make engineering or policy decisions on the basis of this hypothesis.”
Smart people don’t say “the world is hard to interpret so all hypotheses are equal.” They say “the world is hard to interpret so we need to make difficult decisions with incomplete information.”
You have a fair point ( though I wasn't quite referring to that) , in the sense that we all make decisions based on best evidence that fits our own best analysis rather than be paralyzed by “we don’t know” stand.
My guess regarding most people that I know, is that a typical 'climate-denier' ( the ones I know) generally have investigated more that his 'climate-acceptor' counterpart who seems to have unequivocally accepted the official position.
Note I'm not saying that that the 'climate-denier' is right, I'm saying that he has made more efforts to understand the information available to him. Who is to say who brought into the 'propaganda'?