There is a clear and distinct difference between how science should and must operate within science, and the epistemological standards by which we must operate

There is a clear and distinct difference between how science should and must operate within science, and the epistemological standards by which we must operate day to day in judging the quality of science, as we are non-scientists. At some point, as even Bertrand Russel was aware, we must depend on two very unreliable mechanisms: memory and testimony. We cannot prove the physical laws of the universe every time we do science, and we cannot re-do every experiment of a paper before we cite it or accept it. One must trust in the framework of science. I'm well aware of how things work (or at least ought to work) in science, but that's totally irrelevant to the point I was making about skepticism of the sources that publish science and who they are funded by. It is especially irrelevant if we are talking about lay people judging research for their own purposes.