Many Americans don't seem to realize that scientific inquiry is always provisional--subject to ongoing research, never finding (or seeking) fixed truths. Nor apparently do they understand the need to look at any study's methodology and parameters before comparing it to another study on a similar subject.

So when the popular media report that according to a particular experiment coffee is bad for you, and three weeks later, the same media report another experiment that (according to the media) purports to show that coffee is good for you, the general public thinks that we can't trust science for our information.

These are not difficult concepts to grasp. But people are so afraid of open-ended answers that require them to evaluate evidence on their own that they latch onto pronouncements from any idiot as long as that idiot seems confident.

We are a nation of bleach drinkers--a few people literally and the rest metaphorically.