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Originally Posted by petegz28
And why is it we should listen to only Fauci? Sorry but as you said, it isn't gospel. Therefore I like to get a broader take on things and not just one man's opinion.
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He's not conducting research. He's looking across the landscape of research and drawing conclusions based on the general consensus. And it's not like there's this army of epidemiologists and public health officials who disagree with him. A vast, vast majority of experts agree with his conclusions.
If there's one thing that I've come to despise about the current public discourse about science, it's that people don't understand (or care about?) the idea of scientific consensus. If 10 studies are done, and 9 of them come to the same conclusion, that's pretty reliable. Is it perfect? No. But if we're placing bets (in the form of policy), it's pretty good.
The world we live in, though, means that people who don't like that consensus will just point to the 1 dissenting study and say that it "proves" that the consensus is "wrong." Is it possible the others were wrong? Yes. Is it likely? No.
We've somehow arrived in a world that, despite millenia of scientific advances leading to where we are today, people look for anything they can possibly do to discredit anything they don't agree with.
I'm not saying we should trust everything that Fauci says. I even agree that it would be nice to have an economist more prominently featured who can bring that view to the discussion (though note that surveys of economists suggest they think that opening things up is risky as well). I just don't understand why everyone is going all conspiracy theorist about the guy when he's literally dedicated his life to keeping people healthy.