> So what did you mean by the 'just' there? It would be quite normal to read this as agreement with me up to this point, but no further, and I am pointing out some of the implications and consequences of adopting that position.

I think you were a bit too quick to jump to a disagreement—my point was that in an argument it’s often OK to point out some evidence exists at all, but generally it’s better to reference a source. (Although it may be futile anyway, if your counterparty does not consider that source trusted.)

> If you want to contest that point on the grounds of the methodology of collection, for example, you need to raise specific issues with that methodology, not simply say that, in general, there might be a problem with the methodology.

Well, then I’m doing something that you somehow consider unacceptable. I’m not contesting the exact claims, but pointing out there might be errors with that methodology—and that furthermore, from scientific models that informed that methodology, to scientific models that they were based on, there can be errors at any level down the chain of understanding.

“Prove this scientific finding wrong here and now, or admit it’s correct” strikes me personally as more than a bit fallacious—without insinuating anything about any particular cause. (Remember, my original comment was very general, and I really was not trying to obliquely push some vaccine conspiracy agenda, although the vax/anti-vax debate is one case where laypeople on the vax side sometimes adopt arguments that imply science is somehow inherently correct.)

> they could say that they did not have the resources to check - but if they were to claim that despite or because of their lack of ability, their opinion on the matter is just as good as that of anyone who has been able to check, then they would ipso facto be arguing that the ability to gain knowledge about a proposition is irrelevant to how much credence one should give to that proposition, and that what one can know is independent of the ability to acquire knowledge

Fair point.

To be frank, I can’t find myself arguing for theories like flat Earth, vaccines injecting people with chips, etc.—the arguments made there are just lazy, mostly hinge on distrust, implicitly require trusting a whole lot of other things, and often smell of conspiracy theorizing. However, I can’t ridicule a person or call them confused for a general statement like “COVID vaccines may turn out to have yet-unknown long-term side-effects”, it can be made in a lazy way but it is not a false statement and does not require a huge leap of faith to arrive at. Even if I personally consider it unlikely, medical research is quickly evolving, previously-unknown causative links are uncovered all the time, and medicine is sometimes found to be biased in favour of pharmaceutical companies.

Now, the matter of mandatory vaccination policies is a separate one. There are a lot of policies I may not like yet am complying with. As a random example, imagine you doubt vaccine safety and you drive a SUV in a city while I happen to accept the vaccine but believe that SUVs are unsafe and pedestrians should have right of way—well, I follow the rules, and so should you.

> much of the humor in sitcoms and stand-up comic routines is based on issues - quite often conflicts to some degree - between members of a family

No, but what I brought in question was not well-polished and pre-written sitcoms or comic routines—it was presumably genuine sentiment from what people post on Twitter et al.

> that science is becoming too similar to a religious belief, and more specifically that we can see this in the vax/anti-vax argument.

I still stand by that point. I’m not saying everyone treats science as a religious belief, but I’m saying many (I can’t exactly quantify) non-religious laypeople grant “science” (minus philosophy) explanatory powers that it doesn’t have (e.g., uncritically adopting the unfalsifiable materialism/physicalism stance on reality and consciousness as the only position that could ever be true just because natural sciences happen to be focused on studying materials), which causes unnecessary misunderstanding and polarization. Avoiding that doesn’t require abandoning all trust in science, just some open-mindedness and awareness of its limitations.