Not a Scientist

I'm getting rather fed up of the idiots who, when a lay person comments on an established fact of science, says; "Well, what would so and so know - he/she isn't a scientist." 

You don't have to be a scientist to understand the result of a scientific study; you simply have to be able to have an enquiring mind, be able to read, have the ability to comprehend the results of someone else's research effort, possible spark of genius and hard work in collating data, able to join the dots and finally not be hampered by an overarching ideological barrier. Once something you didn't know previously is explained to you and the evidence is presented, even someone of limited intellect can understand 'the science'. Science is taught in schools, for God's sake.

It has become a lazy way of deflecting or shutting down an argument about something you'd rather not know the answer to (or anyone else, for that matter), as it conflicts with your skewed value hierarchy, and usually in people where truth is nowhere near the top of that hierarchy, but ideology is. A key area where it's prevalent is in Global Warming, where people like Greta Thunberg merely repeat what scientists have concluded.

Well, I stopped wearing the Triumph / Trump hat on walks, but people are still giving me weird looks.

I can't, for the life of me, think why.