I’ve experienced in recent years that many of my friends who never cared a single bit about science started to link to scientific papers in order to back up the

I’ve experienced in recent years that many of my friends who never cared a single bit about science started to link to scientific papers in order to back up their arguments (usually some form of right vs left discussion). This became much stronger during the pandemic. I’m not 100% sure if they believe that this is factual truth or if it’s just another one of the myriad of argumentative tools they use. But you’re absolutely right that they see it in a completely different way than scientists do. I’ve tried to explain to them that picking one article out of a thousand is just confirmation bias, that anyone can find one article (published somewhere) that confirms anything, and that scientific conclusions need to be replicated, but it’s useless and frustrating.