Why no one trusts the “trust the science” propaganda
By Easton Martin | July 30, 2026
If you want to understand why so many Americans lost faith in “the science” over the last few years, you do not have to look very far. It comes down to what happened during COVID-19. Public officials spent months giving out changing directives, offering conflicting stories, and flat-out lying about basic facts, all while demanding complete obedience from the public.
To make matters worse, those same officials started talking as if they were the living embodiment of science itself. When authority figures declare that criticizing their policy mandates is the exact same thing as attacking science, they reveal a massive, fundamental misunderstanding of what science actually is and how it functions.
No one should ever use the phrase “the science” as if it refers to a concrete, unshakeable entity. Science operates as a discipline built on specific methods, constant questioning, and continuous testing. Treating it as synonymous with absolute truth misses the point entirely. It is an ongoing process designed to discover how the physical world works, driven by debate and the willingness to update conclusions whenever new evidence appears.
Reducing an evolving method of inquiry into a rigid set of dogmatic rules destroys the credibility of science communicators. They convert a tool for understanding the world into a convenient shield for their own political decisions. People can tell when they are being talked down to, and when the official story keeps shifting without acknowledgment, trust evaporates fast. Restoring that trust requires abandoning the idea that science is a static set of facts handed down from on high, and returning to the reality that true science depends on open debate and constant testing.
Perhaps Scientism, and the broader New Atheist movement of the early 21st century share a tremendous amount of the blame for this “trust the science” outlook. People like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens consistently proclaimed the triumph of science and its explanatory simplicity and scope over religion and “blind faith”. Their brainwashing turned science from a respectable discipline into a pathetic, anti-God brainwashing tool in the mind of many of our generation. It is then no wonder why people are skeptical when they hear “trust the science”.
