I don't have the patience to be a therapist for climate-change-conspiracy nut cases. Or conspiracy nut cases in general ( :

While in Florida there was a story about how they are releasing genetically engineered mosquitoes. The change causes only male (non-biting) to survive through to hatching. Already used in other countries to combat a mosquito that carries dengue fever, yellow fever and typhoid.

The news report about spoke to one woman on the street that was against because according to her we don’t know enough about it. That is the GOP in a nutshell. Distrust of experts because you the uneducated weren’t in on the discussion.

well i understand her concern. we can trust scientists too much sometimes. with experiments like that, once the genie's out of the bottle, you can't get it back in if things go wrong.

The problem is she knows nothing about because she is not a scientist or expert in the field. Refusing to trust experts because you don’t anything in the subject is no reason to denounce that subject.

If you are bothered by the science behind something, trying learning something about it before commenting is my point. The right trusts their gut over people that have studied for years. If we followed their thinking we would still be throwing rocks at fish to eat.

i semi-agree with you. for example, i'm not very knowlegeable in most fields of science but I can still tell when an "expert" is making a bad decision that could affect me. so I think non-scientific citizens have a right to express such opinions.

now, is the politics stream fraught with people expressing intelligent but non-scientific opinions? no. it is not.

Correct. It is people expressing stupid and non-scientific lies/delusions.

Some skepticism is normal. The law of unforeseen consequences is reason enough, but a personal lack of knowledge is what this woman was complaining about. Somehow her not being asked when she has no understanding of the field is why she was opposed to it. I have seen it too many times.