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The present research investigated whether laypeople are inclined to rely on their own evaluations of the acceptability of scientific claims despite their knowledge limitations. Specifically, we tested whether laypeople are more prone to discount their actual dependence on expert knowledge when they are presented with simplified science texts. In two experiments, participants read scientific arguments that varied in comprehensibility and type of argument support and therefore in apparent easiness. We assessed participants’ inclination to rely on their own evaluation rather than deferring to expert advice when judging argument persuasiveness. The results showed that laypeople were more strongly persuaded by apparently easy arguments than by difficult ones. Furthermore, they were more confident in their own evaluation of the information and less inclined to turn to an expert for decision-making support after reading easy compared to difficult arguments.

Science popularization fulfills the important task of making scientific knowledge understandable and accessible for the lay public. However, the simplification of information required to achieve this accessibility may lead to the risk of audiences relying overly strongly on their own epistemic capabilities when making judgments about scientific claims. Moreover, they may underestimate how the division of cognitive labor makes them dependent on experts.

Non-experts need to recognize that, due to the division of cognitive labor in our societies, they have to approach such accounts as competent outsiders. This implies relying on evaluation criteria that account for non-expert’s epistemic limitations, such as source evaluation and corroboration, rather than evaluating contents directly using inadequate criteria such their subjective feeling of understanding

As Goodwin rightly observes in an earlier version of her contribution to this issue, all criteria for judging argumentation from expert opinion are ‘external’ in the sense that there is no possibility of verifying directly what the expert actually claims to know

A perennial problem in social epistemology is the problem of expert testimony, specifically expert testimony regarding scientific issues: for example, while it is important for me to know information pertaining to anthropogenic climate change, vaccine safety, Covid-19, etc., I may lack the scientific background required to determine whether the information I come across is, in fact, true. Without being able to evaluate the science itself, then, I need to find trustworthy expert testifiers to listen to