re: #49 The Ghost of a Flea

I also get the impression that a lot of media types don’t understand the vetting and evaluation process inherent in peer review and the research/publication process, and basically view scientific assertions as a kind of appeal to authority. When anti-scientific statements are made, they’re treated as “a different perspective”—a competing appeal to authority—rather than probed regarding the validity of the science.

I think that’s right, but I also think that this notion that science can be treated as “one of many, equally valid perspectives” is bullshit, and can be traced to an overweening deference to religion in our supposedly secular society.