“It really is not that easy to fool scientists. No one gets accepted into graduate school or has a career in research unless they are extremely intelligent.”
No, you’re wrong about that. In your general claim that scientists are not easy to fool. (First, look at how many scientists believe the global warming propaganda, and how many believe the current mask propaganda.)
Any specialized knowledge always comes with some kind of propagandistic teaching.
The way it works is context. The context is made of adherence to tradition and allegiance to experts in the particular field. These two things are highly trusted by those being educated and trained.
The first rule of propaganda is to establish a trusted source.
Second point you should think carefully about: although it’s true as you say that scientists look very carefully at their work, THEY ARE JUST AS SUSCEPTIBLE TO MORAL CORRUPTION AS ANY HUMAN BEING.
All it takes for scientists to either look the other way or to perpetrate malevolent acts is an envelope of cash, the electronic funding of an account, blackmail or other coercion.
And here’s a challenge to your assertion about the intelligence of scientists: how many of them believe in communism? Or globalism? Belief in the viability or preeminence of either of these political fallacies is an intellectual deficit.
Do you have an insider's knowledge of how many actually believe that climate change is not natural, versus how many include some mention of anthropogenic climate change in their publications and proposals as a way to increase chances of getting their work funded? I have seen many many mentions of "climate change" thrown into completely unrelated work. I admit it's been a while since I looked, but I have seen very little actual definitive evidence published in the scientific literature that humans have some sort of control over the climate.
On the other hand, many researchers have conducted mask efficacy studies. They have studied the ability of masks to block/slow small particles in a laboratory setting, and have looked at real world evidence of inhibition of Covid-19 transmission among real people wearing masks. Yes, masks do reduce transmission of Covid-19.
Any specialized knowledge always comes with some kind of propagandistic teaching.
The way it works is context. The context is made of adherence to tradition and allegiance to experts in the particular field. These two things are highly trusted by those being educated and trained.
Are you talking about advanced education in soft subjects such as humanities or social sciences, which are heavily reliant on opinion and conjecture? In the hard sciences, we are taught to judge based on evidence. We study historical ground-breaking experiments to understand how the processes of logical reasoning and rigorous collection of data (i.e. evidence) lead to scientific advancement. And we spend our careers designing experiments to reveal facts about the natural world. The fact that hydrochloric acid and sodium hydroxide combine in a 1:1 ratio to form water and salt is not alterable by my opinions on salt.
And in the context of coronavirus, if there were evidence that it was constructed in a lab, it would be as obvious as evidence that a picture has been photoshopped. You don't need anyone's opinion to find whether there is a multiple cloning site, or whether there are sequences from an unrelated virus contained within the SARS-CoV-2 genome, etc. Among the thousands of scientists looking at the SARS-CoV-2 genome, someone would have noticed the signs of genetic tampering if that had been done.