>...and consensus among scientists No, not that. That's how you get published or land in a news article (and you know that this is some bullshit "science" when a bunch of scientists agree that, say, there are 90 genders). This is science: **the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment.** >Any scientist has the right to question hypotheses or theories of other scientists But they should only do so through conducting additional science. Criticisms of science are considered very low-quality additions to science and are often just wrong - it's conjecture. Peer reviews are higher quality than criticisms (because they follow a standard/rigor to get officially published/rejected). Results duplication/rejection are the additional science that is high quality. <-Look for this kind of science. Best science yet is Random Control Trials and Meta-Analyses (even better if you conduct a meta-analysis comprised of Random Control Trials. >When pieces of shit say "trust the science" in mass media, it means they are illiterate or just trying to fool people. Trust the peer reviewed, published in reputable journals, results duplicated science. Of which we have a very very large amount for almost everything COVID-19 related. As you said, don't trust the news or any internet writer that is not the author(s). Even on this site, I've found news articles posted that were written by absolute morons who didn't understand the study they were writing about. I skip the bullshit and go straight to the study. Side-note: sampling methodology is pretty much the end all be all of high quality a study will be. It's "all" in the sampling methodology.