An article that is worth your time:
Who Gets To Decide the Truth?
We all get a say—not just priests, princes, or partisans.
It provides a lot more than just this punchline:
Notice how Locke’s empiricism dovetails with the political principles of natural rights and basic equality. Because all people have eyes and ears and minds, and because we must check and consult with each other to find truth, the many, not just the few, are entitled to assert their own beliefs and contest others’. Epistemic rights, like political rights, belong to all of us; empiricism is the duty of all of us. No exceptions for priests, princes, or partisans.
I remember once reading an article that said before Einstein’s theory of relativity, where it was said only 12 people on earth could understand it, scientists had to explain things so that a lay person could follow and agree with it. Theoretical science blew that all up, and now (in my opinion) scientists are treated like a modern priestly class. They say it. You believe it. Or, you are anti-science.
Yet, the priests of old were not perfect morally or intellectually, and neither are scientists. As Jonathan Rauch notes:
Empiricism is the duty of all of us.