A scientist is someone who found someone to pay them. Nothing more, nothing less.
Ignoring ideas unless they came from a brand is the opposite of science. Then you drop your brand (physicist) and expect others to judge your opinion as more important. It didn't work. As a senior physicist in quantum sensing I'm invalidating your brand.
Are these scientifically founded opinions. Not necessarily, hence why "following the science" is valid if you are following experts in their field.
If you're a software consultant, would you take on the opinions from a marketing client on the best algorithm to implement for their solution? Probably not.
If someone put in the effort and time to throughly research the topic and draw an opinion from that. Regardless of their title or their funding, then why would you discount it?
If you can't judge something on it's merits and must rely on other signals then you end up judging the envelope and not the message.
This has veered off from my original point. In that saying "follow the science" is not a issue - there is nothing wrong with following the opinion of experts in their field.