I think a major casualty of the war on science funded primarily by fossil fuel interests has been that the kneejerk pro-science response has become a lazy appeal to authority.

People say "99% of scientists all agree listen to them you are not worthy of having an opinion on this!" and while it is arguably true lol, it also sends a message undermining to the interests of science.

Science is the practice of skepticism not of finding facts and crusading under their banner in a materialist campaign of conquest. Facts are rather the inevitable residue of science after science has subjected theories to extended and diverse torturuous inquisition.

I wish people defended science by saying it isn't a set of Correct Facts but a system of Skepticism that has thoroughly examined a shared body of knowledge and that you should assume that if the more fantastic sounding theories contained within that arena of "skeptical melee" haven't been dismantled that you can probably trust that they are real, as fantastic as they sound.

This when you shorten it sounds like an appeal to authority where the scientists are given undue authority but it is not the same thing. What matters is the environment of genuine skepticism that scientific theories and "facts" are subjected to in order to establish their validity that matters.