The Unscientific Nature Of Appeals To Scientific Authority

Appeals to scientific authority are some of the most entrenched, popular kinds of appeal to authority even though they are used in favor of claims it would be utterly impossible for a typical person to even look into beyond a conceptual level.  For instance, a Western person with an ordinary life has no way to observe black holes, the Mariana Trench, or the quantum world, but there is no shortage of people eager to agree with whatever information a subjectively respected scientist offers.  The point is not that the claims of scientists about such things are false, whether the claims are empirical or theoretical in nature, but that they are epistemologically untenable.

All of the logical fallacies (non sequiturs) involved in believing that science provides knowledge about objective reality beyond perceptions aside, it is still irrational to believe someone else's words at face value unless they are making a strictly logical claim that can be immediately verified by reasoning out abstract truths.  However, it is also unscientific to accept a scientific figure's claims at face value: the scientific method is about direct sensory observations, not about believing scientific hearsay from distant people.  While learning of reported discoveries can be helpful and stimulating, this is not what it means to practice a pursuit of science on its own.

One must be willing to analyze one's own experiences with the laws of nature (scientific laws) if one is to apply the scientific method to applicable matters in one's life.  To merely assume that the predominant scientific paradigms of one's era are true is logically invalid, but it also shows a disregard for true science.  Someone who thinks accepting consensus is somehow rational is loyal to popularity and to the thoughts of others rather than to science itself.  This, as any rational person can see (at least if the issue is brought up by someone else), does nothing but trivialize scientific information.

The Western world has come to view scientific frameworks as requiring consensus and the affirmation of others in order to be evidentially supportable, when this is simply not the case.  Science is never about consensus; it is about understanding one's perceptions of the laws of nature, which can be harnessed for the sake of curiosity and practicality.  Other people can suggest scientific information that might be otherwise inaccessible, but they are neither necessary parts of the scientific method nor capable of proving their claims about whatever scientific processes are behind directly observable phenomena.

Experiencing a subjective sense of fascination and excitement is not irrational or unscientific (irrationality encompasses a far broader range of errors than "unscientific" does), but there is no philosophical basis for accepting hearsay about experiments that may never have happened at all even when one does not look beyond the thoroughly limited scientific method.  Personally, intentionally making observations is epistemologically superior to waiting to believe reports from others that one cannot test for oneself.  It is the scientific equivalent of the difference between consulting others about more foundational metaphysical beliefs with the intention of accepting whatever they say by default and consulting reason itself before judging the claims of others.