Trust comes in degrees, so I think the question is how much to trust. Of the scientists I've worked with for long enough to estimate their character, I outrigh

Trust comes in degrees, so I think the question is how much to trust. Of the scientists I've worked with for long enough to estimate their character, I outright distrust only ~ 10%. That's consistent with [0], which reports that 8% of surveyed researchers admitted to falsifying data, but [1] reports 2% falsification and [2] reports only 0.5%. So if a finding is only reported by one group, whom you don't know personally, I would be only 50–70% confident in it. Once a finding is reported by at least two genuinely independent groups (no strong social or professional connections between the groups) it's appropriate to accept the facts reported but not necessarily the interpretation. As independent confirmations accumulate, idle skepticism becomes less credible. Active skepticism—doing experiments or collecting data to test the status quo—is always helpful though and should be welcomed. [0] https://www.proquest.com/openview/e1af57060d9d8f628417ce3b7d1f7a7b/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=48061 https://www.proquest.com/openview/e1af57060d9d8f628417ce3b7d... [1] https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0005738 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal... [2] https://www.nature.com/articles/435737a https://www.nature.com/articles/435737a