[latexr]

> If you have legitimate evidence

That’s a tremendously high bar. Who defines what constitutes “legitimate” evidence? Anyone can disagree on what that means and you’re back to square one.

Look up “The Final Experiment” and its aftermath. Despite convincing the flat earthers who participated, the ones who observed it via livestream dug their heels in further.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Final_Experiment_(expediti...

[saagarjha]

I mean to some extent if you doubt the results of your experiments you’re not going to get anywhere, because you can never prove a model. At some point the simpler model is the one that wins out and some very small number of observations that go against it can be accounted by sampling error or hoaxes or whatever. Where you draw that line is up to you of course but generally the scientific community does fairly well on extremely well-supported theories.

[pjc50]

> generally the scientific community does fairly well on extremely well-supported theories.

Then you step outside of the scientific community into the flamethrower of public opinion, and suddenly you have to deal with people who think it's a good idea to give their kids measles.

[saagarjha]

Yeah, well don't do that. Public opinion is not peer reviewed science.

[pjc50]

It does however matter for, say, US vaccine policy.