The "lay person" is some dood with 99-100 for an IQ. He, or she (at the mean, the sexes are the same) lives by a basic set of rules to keep him/her alive. Then they run across Teh Scientific Literature.
It turns out that Jane and Joe Blow are pretty good at detecting bullshit. They can get a whiff if a study is going to be replicated or not.
I figure that even high-IQ people become Mr and Ms Blow in such fields as the high-IQers haven't made their focus. Here: psychology and sociology. Humans are evolved to understand other humans.
Let's expand that, on the China Virus. I am a decided midwit in virology. I own some basic information that exhaled air is moist, that floating liquid-droplets are called "aerosols", how water-droplets bear microbes, and how these emulsions transmit. So do a lot of people, I'd even say most people, although they mightn't have the purty words I got for it all. From that, back in March, I concluded that masks work to prevent the transmission of an airborne virus. I was ahead of the CDC and the WHO, in those days.
The scientists had their dispute and, at the end, they assured me I was right. Well, duh. Any rando could have told them.
(Unless they're Republicans - although, as often, the RNC convention isn't paying attention. The sad irony of our culture, is that the educated people close to Trump are forced to work around their own base.)
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