[hackula1]

Not particularly reliably. Peer review by people who actually know what they are doing is going to beat my puny brain 99% of the time.

[coldtea]

Wasn't that the exact same argument given to the expertise of priests and medieval scholars?

In any case, I wouldn't count on that. Recent meta-studies (if we are to at least believe those) show that a majority of scientific papers are non verifiable and non reproducible BS, contain fabrications and alterations, etc -- and that's talking about the "hard sciences". And having been involved with researchers, I don't doubt that at all.

E.g:

http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21588069-scientific-re...

and:

http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21588057-scientists-t...

[derleth]

> Wasn't that the exact same argument given to the expertise of priests and medieval scholars?

This is the "Experts were wrong before" dodge, which conveniently ignores how often individuals are wrong.

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Science_was_wrong_before