It is often used as a weapon against people who reject not science in principle but rather one or another leading scientific proposition, whether it be the COVID-19 vaccine, climate change , nutrition (low-fat or low-carb diet), to name just a few. My goal is not to defend or deny any particular scientific position, but to challenge the model of science that the most ardent proponents of science seem to base themselves on. Their model makes science seem almost identical to what they mean by, and attack as, religion. If so, we shouldn't listen to them when they lecture us about the need to heed science.

The most obvious problem with the call to “believe in science” is that it is unhelpful when renowned scientists – that is, bona fide experts – found on both sides (or all sides) of a given empirical question. The dominant parts of the intelligentsia might prefer that we didn't know, but there are dissenting experts on many scientific questions that some blithely declare are "settled" by "consensus", i.e. beyond all debate. This is the case with the precise nature and likely consequences of climate change and certain aspects of the coronavirus and its vaccine. Without real evidence, credentialed mavericks are often accused of having been corrupted by industry, with the tacit faith that the scientists who express the established position are pure and incorruptible. It is as if the quest for public funds could not in itself bias scientific research. Furthermore, no one, not even scientists, is immune to groupthink and confirmation bias.

Thus, the chorus of “science followers” ​​pays no attention to accredited mavericks, unless it is to defame them. Apparently, according to the believers' model of science, truth descends from a centuries-old Mount Sinai (Mount Science?) through a body of anointed scientists, and these statements are not to be questioned. Dissenters can be ignored because they are not among the elected officials. How did the elected officials achieve their exalted position? Often, but not always, it is through the political process: for example, appointment to a government agency or the awarding of prestigious grants. It may be that a scientist has simply won the adoration of the progressive intelligentsia because his or her views easily align with a particular political agenda.

But this is not science; it's religion, or at least it's the stereotype of religion that "followers of science" oppose in the name of light. The result is dogma and, indeed, accusations of heresy.

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