I chose science subjects at school, but I’m not a research scientist. Even if I was, I wouldn’t have the time to do all the reading necessary to come to an opinion about the various important debates of the day. So why do I think that the earth isn’t flat? Why aren’t I ambivalent about scientific conspiracy theories?
At school and college, there were the classes and then there was time in the library. I would read magazines such as New Scientist and Scientific American, and biographical books about famous physicists, chemists and mathematicians. What I absorbed was an image of the working life of scientists.
There is the discipline of the scientific method and a global community that communicates to support and to challenge each others’ work. It isn’t perfect, but at some point in the process the community may come to accept a certain view as being the most reliable one.
This is the process that I trust.