They assume they are intelligent, yet they are content to allow a corporate-run media organization do their thinking for them.
I just ask them a question: "Have you researched your belief (because that is what it is...)? Have you dug into it, looking for all the information? Or are you content with having someone else, who may or may not be telling you everything, influence you?"
Every so often I get something more than "huh?"
But there are limits to this virtue. No one can possibly dig deep into everything. Managers have to trust thier engineers, engineers have to trust their deep subject experts, the deep subject experts have to trust the pure science research, etc.
I trust the pilot he knows how to fly. I trust the translator they know how to handle hebrew/greek/aramaic.
When economists have reasonable theories and tools that create useful predictions on the world, you have to trust their expertise.
I trust that Norm Cantor did the primary research for his book on the middle ages. I don't need to know the details of all the primary records.
Tell me, did you perform deep research and testing of various oils, metal wear rates, piston ring blow by rates, soot levels, HC levels, and thermal analysis of your engine before you let jiffy lube put 5w30 in the engine?