Science And The Scientific Community

Appealing to a scientific publication or spokesperson for a group of scientists is not the same as appealing to science.  The so-called "scientific community" is not an epistemological framework or a method, but a set of people who investigate specific facets of the physical world or certain theoretical concepts that pertain to the physical world, reacting to each other and participating in various activities with other scientists.  Ideally, these individuals would understand the true epistemological nature of science and its sheer irrelevance to the most important truths about reality (which are all in some way related to logic or consciousness), but they are simply people whose words are meaningless on their own, like those of anyone else.

Given the nature of certain scientific claims, however, there is no way whatsoeever for either "laypeople" or professional scientists to truly know if the concepts are correct.  Indeed, even direct visual observation does not prove that a particular object exists outside of one's perceptions (although the existence of an external world can be fully proven [1]), so demonstrating that something like string theory or a multiverse is true is far beyond the scope of human limitations and current technological paradigms, no matter how familiar they are with the involved concepts or how connected they are to other scientists.  A full consensus of the scientific community on these issues would prove only that there is mere agreement and that those who believe the notions are philosophically incompetent and utterly imbecilic.

Something far less explicitly metaphysical and comparatively simple does not escape the epistemological limitations and broad metaphysical irrelevance of science.  Science as a method is about direct observation of the sensory world, the nature of which excludes assuming that even respected scientists or a total indicator are right.  One cannot assume and know something simultaneously.  One ramification of this is that believing a scientist who claims to know that subatomic particles or dark matter exists is philosophically invalid and therefore logically indefensible.  No matter how convenient, simple, or relevant to either everyday life or the most grand aspects of science his or her claim is, someone who loves science (and reason) instead of the scientific community will not make the assumption.

Believing that there is evidence that such ideas are true is logically sound if and only if one is familiar with that evidence, but to actually believe they are true instead of seemingly likely at the given time is to go beyond what reason can establish, choosing non sequiturs instead of pure logicality.  When this is the truth of the human epistemological state with regard to everyday scientific occurrences, whose true causal relationships cannot be known beyond correlations and perceptions, how would hearsay from scientists the public does not even know personally amount to any sort of "proof" that a scientific idea corresponds to reality?  Science can only inform people about their own individual sensory perceptions, and the scientific community is further removed from everyday people than science itself is!

[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2018/08/matter-is-not-illusion.html