> Why haven’t science scholars devoted time to this issue?
This is a flat out lie. Metascientists have grappled with this question for a long time, including Kuhn and Popper (who are mentioned). The truth of the matter is that you can't identify a scientific fact, that's not really how science works. We rule things out, not in. But we also hone in on answers but never have an exact one. There will always be a lot of trust in the system. We trust that scientists won't lie. The truth is that there is very little lying. Because if you do, you are completely ruined. We're even seeing people distrust science not because scientists are wrong but because science reporting is wrong and people will blame scientists but not the reporting. Though the thing is, how is a layman supposed to know the difference? I wouldn't expect them to and I don't know how to. I can only really judge a "fact" that's in my niche in my field and everything else is an educated guess. I have training and experience, but there's still a lot of trust in the system. The world runs on trust and people are extremely trustworthy and good, even in this time where many people don't think this is true the evidence is right there that people are honest.
But the article is talking about two different things. It opens with
> Scientists, policymakers, and laypersons could all use an answer to [knowing what is a fact]
but then starts discussing how we know the earth's core's composition. I'm surprised they didn't talk about the electron (or particles) as this is something Popper and Kuhn both talked about. Are they real or are they forces or just a mathematical construct? This is a far more philosophical question than discussing how public can understand if someone is teaching science or telling lies while sounding scientific. This is really missing the point if you're conflating these two philosophical ideas.
I do think we should teach more metascience in the sciences but I'm not sure this will do anything to build peoples' trust in science, and more importantly, scientific communication.
But how should policy makers deal with these questions? The same way news sources should. You communicate with the scientists and you have scientists (or former) on your team. People that can speak the language and communicate with you. This has to be a team effort because we live in a world of specialization. There is too much information for any singular person to even have a glimpse of reality. But you'll find that many politicians don't have members like these on their teams and I'm not sure how you could expect them to make accurate decisions (or how they can even trust themselves, but that's a different issue).