Reading a modern university textbook is not how you become experienced in any given field of interest. Becoming a scientist is a lifelong interest in a field. What you are describing is exactly what I’m railing against, a narrative crafted as science with all these science looking data points. DIY alternative media is equally as at fault with doing this same crafting of narratives as textbooks, or Wikipedia. And that certainly isn’t the scientific method. What I’m saying is that people unqualified to notice the difference are asserting things on both sides and muddying the public sphere of information. However, scientists, and people of experience in a field, can certainly tell the difference between a narrative and proper data and influencers who poke their head to mess around in a given area cannot in any credible way, yet they talk with authority like they can.
Discussion
When I say unqualified, what I mean is incompetent. A qualification doesn’t mean anything, but experience does. We as bitcoiners know not to accept any nonsense information about how the whole thing will blow over like a house of cards from some no coiner. And yet, I’m merely pointing out that there is people speaking with authority in the antivax world that have none. And so far there has been no evidence, using the scientific method, to definitively say that vaccines are bad
People have trouble with boring, tangible evidence, because you have to sift through it and that takes work. They'd rather hear someone speak "authoritatively" and any skepticism is washed away with "source: ___".
I think we agree on the problem - the solution unfortunately is simple verification but God forbid anyone read data themselves.