He's talking about "the public sphere." Among the general non-specialist public (probably 95%+ of the population), virtually nobody can even do things like prov

He's talking about "the public sphere." Among the general non-specialist public (probably 95%+ of the population), virtually nobody can even do things like prove the Pythagorean theorem. The idea that science is substantially different from religion for most people because they "could", in principle, reproduce the studies is laughable.