[GourmetDan]

"For science being a supposed religion, with supposed gatekeepers, there sure were a lot of hits when I Googled "science news" just now. Over 4 billion--I have never seen a search show up that many hits before."

Surely a competent scientist would recognize a non sequitur before posting?

"Peer-review is a quality-control measure. By having people review an article for scientific plausibility and accuracy, we can filter out the junk science that, if published, would quickly make science lose all credibility."

The only place 'credibility' has in science is as a tool to convince non-scientists that what they are being told should be believed. An emotional appeal to 'credibility' is the antithesis of science. Surely a competent scientist would recognize that.

"That whole scenario of "gatekeepers" of science just doesn't mesh with reality."

Sure it does. You just proved it.

[exDemMom]

The only place 'credibility' has in science is as a tool to convince non-scientists that what they are being told should be believed. An emotional appeal to 'credibility' is the antithesis of science. Surely a competent scientist would recognize that.The only place 'credibility' has in science is as a tool to convince non-scientists that what they are being told should be believed. An emotional appeal to 'credibility' is the antithesis of science. Surely a competent scientist would recognize that.

Credibility means that the correct questions were asked, the experiments were designed appropriately to answer those questions, the appropriate controls were used, and the conclusions fit the experimental evidence. I do not see where "emotional appeal" comes into play here.

Sure it does. You just proved it.

If, despite being shown how much effort is put into making science accessible to everyone, you still choose to believe that there are gatekeepers (who, by definition, exist to keep the knowledge out of your reach), then spending more time trying to demonstrate the accessibility of science is a total waste.