No Matter The Topic, Experts Are Ignored In The USA

"A tussle between science and politics is defining the pandemic response of the Trump administration. How did this increasing rejection of expertise get started?"
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Most of what we, as individuals, "know" is not from direct experience but from those around us and from other sources to which we are exposed.

If one is a magical thinker, it is difficult to determine if claims are true because there is no way to justify claims with such an epistemological method. The background of the party making the claim, nor the level of evidence for the claim, are not major considerations whether one should accept the party's opinion.

If one is a science-based thinker, however, one uses the scientific method to evaluate all claims on our objective reality. The method contains internal elements that justify/verify the results through such measures as peer review and replication. The higher the level of expertise in the appropriate areas and the quality of evidence supporting the claims, the more confidence one may have in the findings.

The link below highlights the history and our present crisis of generally rejecting the experts and it's consequences:

Why Don't Americans Trust Experts any more?