[deadwanderer]

What you're saying is technically accurate to the intended definition and purpose of science, but if you're seriously asking why these people didn't question or contradict, I'm not sure where you've been for the last several years. So many pandemic response items, in particular, have been "Trust the science"/"Follow the science", and any questions or possible alternatives to the prescribed Method Of Treatment are not only dismissed, but actively persecuted.

[allmodelsRwrong]

Thanks for clarifying. I was actually going to respond in a similar manner as ModernMech. Your original comment came off very defeatist towards the scientific method. I see now that it is aimed at our collective response to the scientific method. I also share your disdain towards this response, especially with pandemic response.

At the same time though, I get it and I do this too. This might be too reductionist but I think most of it comes down to trust. It's very expensive, in terms of time, to have a critical understanding of any specialized field. So taking the shortcuts like past experience, intuition, relying on others are more profitable. Especially if the goal is survival and not understanding of a system. This then becomes a game of finding the most "trustable" person but that's the catch 22.

[ModernMech]

To be clear the persecution has always been a feature of the scientific process, well before Covid. I don't like it or think it's necessary, but look around -- who can argue with the results? It's always been there, and no one has figured out how to do science without people getting really attached to their ideas and then attacking (sometimes very viciously) others who go against them. Science has factions and politics and rivalries, and all the inherent human baggage associated with those words. It's never been a bunch of mentats or vulcans deliberating over the best ideas without emotion; it's been apes warring over ideas, and not even necessarily the "best", or "good"/"correct" ideas. Did we forget the whole concept of tenure is so that your institution can't fire you if you start thinking the wrong things? Talk about dismissal and persecution!

I don't know who came up with this notion that science is high-minded (probably a scientist) but it's really as petty as any human social process. Go back through history and you'll note plenty of scientists persecuting some other group because they're challenging the orthodoxy. If that makes you uncomfortable maybe science isn't for you, but that's the truth of how it's always worked (and always will work unless you can solve the human angle of this).

Most ideas, especially scientific ones, are almost never accepted on their own merits. They have to be forcefully pushed on the world, and that ruffles some feathers, because that means crowding out some other competing idea. Remember we call this a "marketplace" of ideas. Not everyone comes home from the market happy.

I guess my bottom line is: welcome to how the sausage is made. During Covid some people got a look and found out that they don't like it, shocker. The good news is you're allowed (no one is stopping you) to participate in the process with your own ideas. You just have to steel yourself against criticism and inoculate yourself against the inevitable retaliation and pushback. If you believe in your ideas, don't give in!