As I've often said, there is no path forward in the U.S. on climate, or any of the defining challenges we face, that doesn't go through a functioning democracy.

The answer was the whole apparatus of footnoting, peer-review, showing data & reproducing findings.

The idea wasn't that *I* could check it, but that anyone competent cd. The science *might* still be wrong,but there was no rational reason to prefer my own judgment.

But all that's now under assault

There was a lot of debate about this in the 19th century, when there was also strong suspicion of vaccines.

People like John Stuart Mill wrote about how we could reconcile a healthy distrust of authority, and the idea that infringements on liberty must have democratic consent, with expert knowledge

It's a massive problem. "Do your own research!" sounds like excellent advice, but most of us are simply not competent to research complex questions of medical science.

So the question becomes, how do we establish forms of authority to which it is rational to give free consent? [...]

The entire Trump administration !