Even scientists hold nearly all scientific beliefs on testimony alone

Evidence

This is true of virtually every scientific belief we hold. If you ask most people in the United States whether the earth goes around the sun or vice versa, they will reply that it is the earth that moves. (At least, 74 percent will do so, according to a poll conducted by the National Science Foundation in 2012.) They are (more or less) right. But they know this only because it is what someone told them. Even professional scientists tend to work on specific research topics addressing a miniscule subset of human knowledge and so are deeply dependent on others for the vast majority of their scientific beliefs. This means that even our society’s most elite experts are susceptible to false belief based on the testimony of others. — Cailin O’Connor and James Owen Weatherall, The Misinformation Age, 31

Categorization

• XREF: Undercuts the expert-vs-lay ignorance divide; dovetails with testimony-based accounts of knowledge in the social-epistemology literature. — connects to: In science, reality itself is called to testify as a witness — Jean-François Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on…, 329; Independent testimonies agreeing closely can convert a skeptic into a believer — Cailin O’Connor and James Owen Weatherall, The Misinformation Age: How False…, 11

Broader Connections

• In science, reality itself is called to testify as a witness #contradicts (0.75) — Jean-François Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition, 329
• Independent testimonies agreeing closely can convert a skeptic into a believer #contradicts (0.72) — Cailin O’Connor and James Owen Weatherall, The Misinformation Age, 11