> So how is a common citizen supposed to know when science is “done” and when it is halfway to done which is the same as being wrong?

Forget about the common citizen, the scientists themselves don't know when science is "done". This is the problem of induction and most scientist are completely ignorant of the issue because they dismiss epistemology and, more generally, philosophy as nonsense. So they implicitly or explicitly substitute "consensus" for truth which is a horrible mistake.

BTW, I don't agree that getting halfway is the same as being "wrong", science is a process after all and unlike Zeno's paradox the state of scientific knowledge is not always half-way to its target, Karl Popper's claims to the contrary notwithstanding.

> I’m on the side that says climate change, for example, is pretty much what science says it is because the scientific consensus is high.

The problem here is complicated by government funding of science and positive feedback that only "consensus" consistent research gets funding. Sure there is window-dressing "opposition research" but its purpose is not the truth but to justify the consensus. Science has become politicized by the use of government money and that's why things such as global warming have become political hot buttons. There is a lot of money and power at stake and people want to fly the flag of "science" to achieve their political goals. When politics and science mix, bad things result. cf. Soviet Union.

> And we all know that studies funded by private industry are suspect.

I think this true today but that it is wrong. The tacit, unspoken assumption behind these suspicions is that government funding is NOT suspect and free from all biases. I think that that is logically and historically false. Certainly revealing ones funding is important because funding can be a source of bias but in the end science should stand on its own merit regardless of the source.

I think Scott Adams has named something that has been going on for decades now which is that the American people rightfully no longer trust science and scientists. Part of this mistrust is a product of the rising anti-technology luddites, religion and the opposition to reason in the culture as he points out. But like Adams I think that the distrust of science has also been earned and I believe it is because of the politicization of science via government funding. The leaked emails in Climategate revealed that maybe the scientists were not being so objective after all. The clearest evidence of dishonesty that I read was that in public the pro global-warming scientists would call for the opposition to publish their results and arguments in peer reviewed journals. In the background they were actively working to block the publication of such research or boycott any journals that did so.

It is now considered "scientific" to dismiss your opponents with ad hom "climate denier" labels, secretly politic to limit dissent and smear the opposition as anti-science morons (the implication that Adams was addressing) and using political marketing tricks like changing the name from "global warming" to "climate change" to make the opposition look like fools. These are the methods of a Karl Rove or James Carville not science nor scientists. This is not science.