Controversial Topic Discussion

While you may not have the ability or resources to perform the necessary work to get a first hand experience of all scientific understanding, those abilities and resources do exist and had you the ability to do so, you could personally investigate findings and falsify or support them. That is how science works. There is nothing more intrinsic to science that its ability to be falsified by valid experimentation. As Einstein said, "No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong."

This is the fundamental difference between science and religion. With religion, no experiment can prove anyone right or wrong.

Science is only reliable because it is never complete. It is plastic and always readily transformed by better explanation. No good scientist would ever expect you to believe them just because they tell you something is so. Although, they do expect that if you are going to challenge findings your challenge meets certain criteria of being repeatable and falsifiable.

I never have a problem with people challenging scientific understanding. I just expect them to meet the rigorous criteria of the scientific method in doing so. It is the best method man has ever employed to find a reliably accurate picture of reality that allows us to make accurate predictions and gather useful information. Without science, we wouldn't be having this internet conversation right now. That, alone, is a pretty sound endorsement of the method.