I think we have our wires crossed. Virologists study viruses. They don’t make predictions or anything like that (beyond obvious ones like a virus could and probably will mutate). They understand viruses on a level I can’t fathom, so I defer to their expertise on matters of viruses.
Epidemiologists are the ones who build the predictive models. They are informed by the virologists to a degree, but they’re informed by many other factors too. Epidemiologists are statisticians or data crunchers. I don’t defer to statisticians because models are always open to error and correction, and even the results themselves can be open to interpretation.
Same deal. It doesn't matter what the area of discipline is, my willingness to defer to experts depends on what they're demanding. If they want a lot then they're going to have to do a lot to convince me. If they tell me I can't understand them because I'm not an expert then that just makes me more suspicious.
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