[thegrim33]

It's appealing to authority without having to even do the absolute bare minimum of mentioning what the authority you're appealing to is. Is the authority some person's blogpost? Is the authority the FDA? Who knows. "The science" is the authority, whoever that might be, which doesn't mean squat.

[helen___keller]

Yes it’s laziness. It’s essentially equivalent to hearsay without proper citations. However it opens the door to less lazy conversation for those who care to ask for sources, and most importantly it sets the baseline expectations that those sources will be grounded by science and not like, my reiki teacher told me kids should wake up after 8 am

There’s something to be said by beginning a conversation with a shared understanding of what is considered a reasonable ground truth.