“Trust the science” has always bothered me for two reasons: 1) science is frequently not black and white and anyone who has done hard science research knows there are plenty of competing opinions among scientists and 2) while scientific facts are facts, we still need to decide on how to act on those facts and that decision making process is most certainly political and subjective in nature.
The essence of science, and what is meant by "trust the science", is to accept theories that fit the existing data until such time as new data contradicts them, while encouraging people to ruthlessly search for just such data which would falsify them.
Sadly, there are a lot of people whose only standard of proof for conspiracy theories is that it contradicts what experts claim.
- to shut down any debate as the science was “settled”
- to argue for censorship as any discussion that went outside the approved borders of “settled science” was by default false and dangerous to expose people to
- to argue that the “flavor of the month” study was the final word no matter how rigorous the research study was