> if a large body of evidence published in reputable journals supports an initially implausible conclusion, then scientific norms require us to believe that con

> if a large body of evidence published in reputable journals supports an initially implausible conclusion, then scientific norms require us to believe that conclusion. Implausibility is not sufficient to justify disbelief, and belief in well-supported scientific conclusions is not optional. This position still seems reasonable to me – it is why I think people should believe in climate change. Plausibility depends on the level of expertise one has in a given domain. Ordinary people don't have any expertise or direct experience of, say, fundamental physics, or astronomy, and so for them (us) no result is either "plausible" or "implausible". We can believe them, or not, but we can't really have an opinion on them. (That goes for climate change: you choose to either trust the experts or not, but you can't tell them that they're wrong if you yourself are not an expert). But social sciences are very different, because all humans have a pretty good understanding of human nature. Studying it is all that we do, all of the time. And so, in the domain of studying human nature, "plausibility" really means something, and the opinion of the layman isn't to be ignored, because chances are said layman is as competent as anyone. In that specific domain, results that fly in the face of the common experience should be received with great skepticism and examined and verified thoroughly.