I agree with the general sentiment but not the final conclusion.
People don’t believe in the scientific worldview solely due to authority figures. They believe if for two other very important reasons,
First we all saw these principles in action and we understood them on a basic level in school. Your examples are among the most abstract in science. Most of science is not nearly as complex or difficult to understand.
Second we can all see science work every day when we use our phones, go to the doctor and weed our gardens. We can see science work everyday. There is no science version of “God works in mysterious ways”.
Dial it back a little and describe faith in democracy, government and the rule of law as believing in fairly tales and you might have something.
The people who have “faith” in the consensus explanation for the creation of the universe among cosmologists, physicists, and astronomers don’t need to do the math. They are making rational assumptions based on good judgement and the best info they have.
State Senate leaders are backing a bill that would limit the governor’s power to name a Kentucky Transportation Cabinet secretary, essentially shifting that role to a citizen board nominated by influential business and government groups.
The newly created board would develop the first draft of the state’s two-year road budget and base it on an “objective scoring system.” The governor’s administration now creates the plan sent to legislators.
The gov is Democrat, the legislature Republican. The same thing that happens in all these gerrymandered states. A Democrat wins in a popular vote contest and the gerrymandered legislature that won a majority through a minority of votes strips him of power.
I am actually on Team Fairy Dust Theory Is Wrong. I don’t have a good competing theory, but it would not be the first time in the history of physics that a mystery mass has been postulated and assumed to be true when the correct answer was instead that there was simply physics we did not understand.
This is just epistemically simplistic. If I tell you the sun rises because God wills it, you can’t point to the fact that the sun does indeed rise as evidence that I’m correct. But that’s what you’re doing with phones and so forth. The point is that there is some stage past which you are just believing something because a suitably credible person told you so. Occam’s Razor, parsimony and all the other heuristics for assigning credibility that can be rationally divined don’t change that. Things are so complex that it ultimately can’t work any other way.
All this talk of burials just prompted me to check what my parents have setup. I actually have papers right here at my desk that my dad gave me, outlining everything I need to know for when they die. Where all their shit is, doctors, home services, financials, etc.
They have burial plots and cemetery info, but doesn’t look like they picked out caskets. The funeral home director is their neighbor and friend, though, so if he’s still around at that time, I would guess it won’t be a hassle.
