[dekhn]

That's the dream (all science communication should be based in the raw scientific data as published in the literature) but it's not how things work now, nor is it even practical. Instead, we rely on experts (authorities) because our priors tell us that experts are usually the most able to interpret the complexity of literature.

One thing that has gone mostly unsaid in this thread is that scientists lie when they publish. Not every scientist, and not every publication, but significant fraction of papers contain true errors or omissions intentionally added by the paper authors. Learning how to read a paper and translate the bullshit takes some time, and usually requires a fairly deep understanding of the state of the art of the field.

I don't think you're obliged to discredit any argument made from authority (we're not making true logical arguments here, we're working in a real world space with ambiguouity).

Then the next question becomes 'which expert to trust'? which is a subjective judgement; personally, after polling many different experts, the "go look for other causes of alzheimer's" experts seemed to have the most compelling biological narrative.