[BrandoElFollito]

At some point you need to trust the scientific consensus, you can only go so far in checking the data (or math).

I have a basic understanding of physics, despite having a PhD. I am not saying this to fake modesty - this is a fact. Most of what is happening in physics is beyond me, not to mention maths (which I had at an advanced level).

Physics taught me to have a bullshit detector when I read articles about "soft" science (and let's admit that this is not a very difficult task), but anything that requires deep, hard knowledge I must just trust.

[Ferret7446]

Science is very different from math. In math you can formally prove hypotheses. In science you cannot formally prove hypotheses, you can only reject hypotheses.

[BrandoElFollito]

Yes, you are of course right.

My point is that even with a formal advanced education on an area (say -- physics), you are bound to weight the "consensual appraisal" of the authors of a claim to make up your mind.

With my PhD (and having left academia after it), I can easily determine that homeopathy is physical bullshit. It may very well work for different reasons (placebo effect), but when I read about people who try to explain that cosmic rays this or quantum energy that -- I know they are idiots.

And then came Jacques Benveniste who was published in Nature with his "water memory" hypothesis. Holy shit - physics has just changed! Why? Because it was in Nature.

Nature then realized this is a scam, retracted the paper, and physics is back on its (unfortunately) boring track (there is nothing that physicists hope more than a radical revolution in physics)

So we need to trust people who have the right titles, university affiliation, track record on TV and whatnot. In biology, despite having worked in some areas there, I have even less trust in myself.

Then comes the "-logy" soft science where it is not difficult to check that what they say makes sense or not just by looking at the math (which is simple, but can be very deceiving)

And then comes math itself. There can be a definitive answer, as you say, but the proof is completely beyond mere mortals. If you look at the Fermat's conjecture proof (a very simple conjecture, which also makes its beauty), it is completely unreadable for someone who is not in the subject. I did a lot of math and past the 10th line I am done.