Simple: Stop believing it’s true just because a scientist said it.
You don’t need a STEM degree to stop propagating theories before they’re proven.
You don’t need a STEM degree to stop propagating theories before they’re proven.
For modern endeavors, it's hard to see how anybody who didn't have a detailed education in the subject could really contribute in a useful way to debunking junk science. I can see this happening for papers that can be dismissed outright because the authors made egregious errors in the study design or data collection (where data scientists/statisticians who don't work in the field can still be very useful), but for most modern physics or medical research, there are literally hundreds of years of well-established theory and practice that you absolutely need to know before dismissing ideas that don't make sense.
This is especially important in areas like infectious disease.
And GP was talking about how journalists can be skeptical. No one is suggesting journalists should be debunking all new science findings—merely that they should be very skeptical when reporting about those findings.
The whole point of science is that you do not have to believe anything just because a scientist said it. Only thing that matters is the validity of their data, whether the data truly backs their interpretation, and if the findings can be replicated.