I honestly think if some serious attention was paid to this and various other real world paradoxes around us, we could actually make some forward progress on these problems for a change.
The Alzheimer's and Parkinson's fields are too easy to fake, and too difficult to replicate. The new ideas are only ~20 years old. Big pharma companies are understandably wary of published papers.
When people say "trust the science", they often refer to things like masks, and antibiotics, and vaccines. That science is hundreds of years old and have been replicated thousands of times.
TL;DR: Some science should absolutely be trusted, some shouldn't. It's not surprising that you can't make blanket statements on a superfield ranging from germ theory to cold fusion.
When people say "trust the science" they're usually referring to fairly recent developments. Covid vaccines were in development and testing for just over 18 months before being mandated and were certainly not replicated on a large scale by disinterested 3rd parties before being mandated. The idea that we can have effective scientific policy without trust in scientific institutions is just... not accurate.
Maybe this indicates the need for better metric.
Questioning novel science is one thing but questioning if the Earth is flat or Germ Theory is another thing all together. The problem with skeptics is that they sometimes hang around conspiracists.
It's hard to not discount these people when the person next to them thinks black people are biologically inferior. Then when those skeptics don't distance themselves or don't explicitly condemn those bad actors, it brings to question if their positions are born of skepticism or some strange prejudice, and that they merely constructed the cover of skepticism to hide their strange prejudices.
For example, during the Covid pandemic there was a lot of questioning around masks. In hindsight, the answer is obvious: it doesn't really matter if masks were or were not effective, because they're essentially free to wear. Even in the worst case, nobody is actually hurt.
But there were many, maybe millions, of mask deniers who would simply refuse to wear them. They were doing this because of institutional distrust and political motivations, not because they truly believed the masks were dangerous. And this is the trouble: these people are skeptics, but they're skeptics with an end-goal of political destabilization, i.e. they're dangerous.
When you mix it all together, which people often do to themselves, it's discredits the very thought process.
Of course not, but if you, say, think the Earth is flat you are delusional. That's just what it is, and I'm not gonna hand hold crazy people when I tell them they're crazy.
The issue is when crazy people assimilate, or rather try to infiltrate, groups of educated skeptics. Now they all look crazy, and that's a problem.
Or do you mean people who didn't deny Covid? Hmm I would demonstratablely less harm than you. Because even if masks are almost useless, that's better than nothing, right?
Simply being contrarian for the sake of it isn't impressive, it's kind of sad. Sometimes the big dogs are just right. If you can't articulate their motivation, objective value gain, methods, etc, then you're probably just crazy.
No, normative thinkers.
This type of mentality actively discredits skeptics, because nobody wants to be lumped in with that. There're genuinely very smart people who were/are skeptical of many Covid policies, but unfortunately, they have to stand next to you. Which, of course, makes them look very stupid. It's a tough problem.
Because of normative cognition, which you suffer from, and which is causing the planet to warm up.
No problem though, you carry on just as you are, no need for you and yours to improve yourselves.
Yes, if you don't believe in Global Warming, you are just stupid. I'm not gonna hold your hand when I make you aware of your intellectual insufficiencies - you are stupid.
Now that you know you're stupid, you can either choose to reinforce your stupidity by living in a delusion or you can do a bit of research and catch up to the average human. I don't care either way, but you're passed the point of claiming ignorance. Eventually the stupidity is self-enforced, meaning you and others will go out of your way to ensure you are stupid.
However, I give people the benefit of the doubt and assume they have a functional brain. Therefore, I conclude if someone "doesn't believe" in climate change, that is a choice. Not a matter of ignorance.
I do not pity you enough to spit in your face with hand-holding and euphemisms. There is a deliberate choice and I'll treat you as such.
If I was to do the same to you, would you not protest?
If you interpret that as a worse outcome, here's a thought: stop being willfully contrarian. Sometimes the most popular and most researched opinion is correct. You gain nothing by being contrarian.
Being skeptical is good. Being skeptical means you require a wealth of evidence to believe something. Well, if you don't believe in climate change, you're NOT skeptical - you're just an obnoxious contrarian. Because we have a wealth of evidence and I'm assuming you've reviewed it.
Yes, go back 50 years ago then. When we had so much more racism, when homosexuals were treated like dogs, when women were beaten for sport and nobody cared.
Those types of people died off not by some conspiracy. They died off because they were a cancer on society, a tumor on mankind. They died off because nobody liked them, except others of their ilk.
What you call "weak" I consider strong. We have the strength today to solve problems. We don't lynch black people anymore, we don't beat women anymore. Men are no longer scared to be themselves. I mean, people like you shiver in your timbers when you see a slightly feminine man - do you not understand the irony in that? How pathetic that makes you? Are you really so stupid that it's right in front of your eyes and you can't see it?
If it's the past you crave, I have doubts about your character. Go talk to an older gentleman and see what they've seen. We've moved on, either figure it out or die in the past. We're not gonna wait around and hold the hands of the weakest of our kind to catch up - you will be left behind.