Though the article reasonably paints the "conservative" (in the small-c/non-political usage) position as driven by "science" or at least fear of being "anti-science", there is in fact nothing scientific about it. It's just a plain appeal to authority.
In fact the "hick" position is the scientific one. If someone eats unrefrigerated pizza ten times without any Adverse Events, then in fact that's an experiment providing (admittedly crude) scientific data that, in fact, the chance of an Adverse Event is no worse than ~10%. (Pedant note: quick, dirty, wrong calculation because the exact value doesn't matter here.)
Science, the process, really does work. Even if many of those who practice it don't look like TV or press release scientists. And even if many "Real Scientists" aren't really anything of the sort.
In fact the "hick" position is the scientific one. If someone eats unrefrigerated pizza ten times without any Adverse Events, then in fact that's an experiment providing (admittedly crude) scientific data that, in fact, the chance of an Adverse Event is no worse than ~10%. (Pedant note: quick, dirty, wrong calculation because the exact value doesn't matter here.)
Science, the process, really does work. Even if many of those who practice it don't look like TV or press release scientists. And even if many "Real Scientists" aren't really anything of the sort.