They would only say that a) you can only sin against god B) blind faith is a virtue and C) that in the good old days they would have burned you in the town square for blasphemy.

In science, as in law, the evidence must be independently verifiable. So we can tell fact from fiction, but it may take time. Therefore, we must be willing to withhold judgement until all the facts are in, or at least be flexible enough to recognize when we have been duped, and make adjustments accordingly.

At least be aware that there is so-called "evidence," and then there is EVIDENCE.

@Flyingsaucesir Are you implying that there are two definitions of the word, evidence? Would that be similar to Trump's declaration of alternative facts?

@Betty Not at all, my dear! The quotation marks are there to signify that the so-called "evidence" is not really what it is purported to be.

(I will add the words "so-called" above to make my meaning clearer.)

@Flyingsaucesir Would that not mean, "so-called evidence" is supposition and not evidence?

@Betty It could mean that, or it could mean it's disinformation, or propaganda, or unverified, or unverifiable...

@Flyingsaucesir Glad I read through all the responses. From your first post, I thought you were referring to "willful ignorance", where the facts are known, but just nto acknowledged or ignored in order to maintain one's established beliefs.

Now, I think I see you were talking about "bad data", that is either made up or comes out of outlier studies that don't pass muster or peer review. That is a growing problem as the internet has allowed persons to compile the outlier studies that appear to confirm each other, can claim that the compilation of studies, which are all outliers are actually peer reviewed because they have come to similar conclusions, even if they are two standards deviations out of the bulk of scientific studies.

@snytiger6 I think that compilation of bad science can rightly be called propaganda or disinformation, because the people who are doing the compiling know that they are simply cherry picking studies to fit their own agenda or preconceived notions. But thank you for articulating that aspect of the problem so clearly and succinctly.