Says a lot David.
I'd put it this way:
There are those who see these technical questions as interesting, but lack the hubris to come to analytical conclusions on technical issues outside their expertise. What are they to do in this case? Weigh the various sources of information, namely analysis by those with credentials or other attributes that demonstrate technical expertise. If there are conflicting conclusions from such "experts", they do not draw strong conclusions either way. If there seems to be consensus, all other things equal, they rely on the consensus.
Its how 99.99% of people go throughout their lives when dealing with topics/issues outside their area of expertise. You do it everyday when you take the advice of your financial consultant, have your attorney draw up your will, or your accountant prepare your taxes.
How you conflate this approach as some "duty to support medical authorities" is beyond me. Its endemic of a lot of thinking in this community of late. If you dare to suggest a mainstream body of science/medicine/etc to be legitimate, you are typically accused of being a troll (or worse).
Take this question of mask science for example. I see the "science" as unsettled. At least that's what my non-technical view of the various data suggests to me. I do not see any evidence of wide spread harm that might come from wearing a mask (as some have attempted to suggest). I see policy makers likely making really rushed, inexperience, and likely suboptimaly informed decisions. Decisions which will very likely be reviewed, many found lacking, and adjusted should we face future public health crises. I do not see evidence for a conspiracy but rather the typical floundering about that humans typically demonstrate when dealing with something new; something novel.
So, on the question of efficacy of masks I'm neutral. I don't see clear evidence of benefit nor do I see clear evidence of harm; so the common sense notion that they might help (even a bit) made wearing one a pretty easy thing for me to do. (For now; not forever)
What I'm not is an apologist for the medical community. Ironic, huh?
Hmmmmm....
I think there is a lot of nuance here as there is in all big complicated situations, and I appreciate what you are saying. In my opinion David is mischaracterizing those who go against the contrarians. I do not think that cautiously adopting what officials say is a dim witted, knee jerk, lemming like rush to side with the 'official narrative" as conspiracy theorists like to call anything that doesn't support sinister conspiracies. This is especially true when, as you note, you have no expertise in a subject matter.
Your point about lawyers, financial consultants, etc is good.I'd add in everything from airline pilots to the pimple faced tattooed person in the restaurant kitchen preparing the meal you ordered. Though even honest doctors tell you to seek a second opinion if you doubt theirs. In the balance, trusting in "officials" seems to come out ahead of being a paranoid cave dweller. I mean society has survived millennia; albeit with many terrible episodes and injustices. Few want to live in a cave and, of those, fewer could survive long doing so. But we must challenge officials to keep them on the right path. Power corrupts after all. There will always be a tension between the officials and the public in any society that has freedom, justice and prosperity as a goal. Such is life and the founders of this country knew that. That being said, the tension must exist at reasonable healthy levels.
If there is some seemingly obvious evidence from good sources that support, as materially true, what goes against the official narrative, then one should be skeptical enough to at least ask the officials to reconcile such evidence with their narrative. Officials should openly and thoroughly perform the reconciliation. If they don't, then they are at least remiss in their duty as officials and, maybe, they are lying.
I think you would agree with that and David and others here certainly would.
The conundrum lies in deciding what constitutes good contrarian evidence. That is where I see things falling apart on this forum and most others. In fact it is a societal issue of major importance at this point. If you don't know anything about the topic or even topics of a similar nature, you cannot discern what good evidence looks like. Add to that the fact that most people are not disciplined in analytical thinking and methodologies. The result is a lot of people clinging to poor quality "evidence" and, when experts hand wave away that poor quality evidence, it reinforces the conspiracy thinking. Add to that all of the deliberate misinformation that is available and mixed in with the real stuff.
The best contrarian evidence is that which exists within the officials' own reports. It is sometimes right there, though, as I have pointed out elsewhere on this forum, officials are people too and, as such, make honest mistakes. Just because you find an official contradicting himself or associated officials doesn't mean you have detected the "smoking gun".
Getting back to covid, in the opening days of the pandemic, before my team joined the corporate task force and began sharing data with other teams (we were worried about how much this thing was going to cost us in claims expense - turned out to be minuscule because we weren't and still aren't seeing covid taking a toll on our covered lives) I was exposed to some information that made me skeptical of the official narrative. We all were. Some noticed; many did not.
That information was the cruise ships. Cruise ships are notorious for being bacterial and viral breeding grounds. Deaths from contracted pathogens on cruises have been well known for decades. Cruises tend to attract an older customer base. Indeed, it is common for terminally ill people to enjoy a cruise in the months before they are slated to die. The cruise ships involved in the opening days of the pandemic were no different. Yet very few of the passengers became ill from covid infection and only a tiny number died. I read all of the articles because I knew that the impact on the passengers and crew would be very telling as to the contagiousness and lethality of the virus - and it just wasn't happening. The same was repeated a little later on US Navy ships. I think one older sailor had a death attributed to covid. There is a long standing tradition with Naval cruises. As soon as the ship leaves port on a deployment, just about everyone comes down with some kind of "crud". After a week or two it's run through the ship and everyone is back to 100%. But that wasn't the case with covid. It simply wasn't that contagious (or most everyone was asymptomatic). It certainly was not anything like as deadly as the black plague it was being made out to be.
Now that is a common sense observation that any reasonable person should use to question the narrative. The effect (or lack thereof) on the cruise ships was well documented by the officials themselves. One doesn't need to be an expert on anything to recognize a red flag in that experience. It was incumbent on the officials to explain the lack of deaths on the cruise ships, not to hype the few that happened. Had the officials addressed what we all saw, if we were paying attention, we would have known that covid only kills the most elderly and frail and/or ill with pre-existing serious conditions. Because that is what happened on the ships and that is what is happening in the larger society. The cruise ships were actually the perfect microcosm for the world wide experience with covid.