What to Expect

Why Did We Stop Trusting Science?

You have never personally verified that the earth orbits the sun. You haven't tested the medication in your bathroom cabinet, inspected the plane before you boarded it, or checked the structural integrity of the bridge before you drove over it. You took someone else's word for all of it… because you had to.

Nobody has the time to know more than a sliver of what they depend on, and a civilization only works because we agree to trust knowledgeable strangers about the rest. So the question isn't whether you trust experts. You do. You're doing it right now, in a hundred ways, without noticing.

The interesting question is what makes you suddenly stop. Because everyone has a point where they no longer trust the experts. The pilot's expertise goes unquestioned, but the doctor gets argued with. One study lands as common sense, and another lands as suspicious. "Follow the evidence" might sound reasonable about climate, almost like propaganda about nutrition, and depends on the date and time regarding psychiatry.

And the switch isn't random. It's tracking what you already believed before you heard the claim, who's in your tribe, what would be inconvenient if true, who's telling you, what you already wanted to be the case. We like to think our skepticism is well-calibrated, applied evenly, and intellectually honest. But is it?