The tricky thing is that while we humans do tend to seek out expert opinion on things we don't know, we also have a fundamental arrive to "understand" things.

The tricky thing is that while we humans do tend to seek out expert opinion on things we don't know, we also have a fundamental arrive to "understand" things. A big part of the job of a doctor is to find a way to explain things to their patient in a way that is tailored for them. Being too technical you won't get the point across; being to vague may be interpreted as you're grasping at straws, and being too condescending is more and more problematic in our modern societies with mass education. To a poorly educated person from the early 20 century, it was no big deal to just trust the doctor to do their doctory thing and talk in their doctory way. Them being condescending and confident was in character. A century later, the society is quite different. Most people received a nominally far better education than in the past, and grew up in a culture where everybody can become whatever they want, after all it's just a matter of educating yourself and hard work. Understanding is withing reach. "Perhaps we don't need to depend on those condescending twats in their white coats looking down on us!". At the same time, the vastness of knowledge gathered makes it so hard to actually master it. Being a proper member of the scientific community requires more and more education and team work and institution to coordinate all that. This provides a barrier to entry to all people who are interested in understanding the whys and the hows. As mentioned earlier, most people seek answers. For the answers to be trustworthy they either have to come from a trustworthy authority or they have to make sense (or better, a combination of the two). But trust in scientific authorities has been eroded over time by egregious failings (real or perceived) of white coats acting in bad faith, doing the bids of whoever provides for their salary, be it big tabacco, big pharma, food industries, etc. When that happened it resonated with the good old human fear of the unknown and mysterious and was fertile ground for the Hollywood persona of the white coat of dubious morality or at least gullible nerd. On the other hand trust in political authority is, well, political, thus fueling the search for alternative explanations when the official ones have politically connotations that go against one's own identity. It also helps that nowadays circulating information offers far less friction than in the past. You can easily devote that half hour to chime in with your deep insights about topics you ultimately have no clue about, like what I'm doing here right now.