Should we fully trust scientific "authority" and accept their findings and/or statements?

Should we fully trust scientific "authority" and accept their findings and/or statements?
NO! We should never trust anyone or organisation without first examining its argument.

Science has permeated almost every facet of our modern life. Our daily processes and activities are dominated by scientific apllications and theories. We cannot escape it even if we tried. And as science pushes its frontiers more and more beyond the testing abilities of our technology, we find ourselves confronted with theories that challenge our previously held thinking or even our systems of wishful thinking. So how can we trust what scientists at the cutting edges of scientific pursuit put forth?

1) The first issue is one of ad verecundiam. Is the scientist qualified to comment in that particular field? This is fairly straightforward.

2) The seond issue are the "high barriers to entry" in scientific pursuits: these barriers to entry are HIGH indeed. Why? How many of us even understand how a fan works? This is because our modern understandings of scientific applications and theories have greatly advanced and are far beyond the understandings of the general public. This then leaves us with the fear and problem of not being able to analyse the validity of their findings and leaves the scientists to engage in putting out unchecked theories.

Read and study beyond your needs. Try to keep up with scientific developments. Do so in a progressive manner. There are many great communicators of scientific theories who go to all lengths to package complex theories in palatable explanations.

Ask questions and examine scientific journals whereby scientists cross-examine and conduct each oher's experiments. This is the process of falsification.

3) Beware of scientists who make “is-ought” statements. Scientific findings focus on facts. These are “is” statements. When scientists make conclusive value (ought) judgments from facts, they commit the “is-ought” fallacy. Facts can inform value judgments but cannot conclusively decide value-driven judgments or actions. We should not allow ourselves to accept conclusive value judgments from scientists because of factual findings. I provide an example: “Abortions are unnatural in nature, no animal except humans perform abortions. Therefore abortions are wrong and we should not perform abortions.”

4) Every human being has a slant. And this slant may inform their findings. However, we cannot entirely discount a scientist's findings because of their background. This would be committing an error of ad hominem. We should examine the soundness of the argument first. If it is sound, the hypothesis still stands despite the scientist’s background. If it is unsound for various reasons, we may have clues from their background on why particular “errors” or suppression of evidence was committed.