Scientism is the position that the ultimate criterion of truth is science, not religion, culture or intuition, even common-sense experience. Scientism was seen most clearly in the public domain with both the climate change scam and the Covid mandates. In both cases "science" was said to justify the policies. But, here is the first big problem. Those who hold to scientism also hold to what is known as the is-ought distinction, that normative, legal and moral prescriptions cannot be deduced from factual statements. There is thus a logical gap. So, how can a policy such as a generalised lockdown be justified merely on a projection of so many lives saved? Clearly it cannot, it is a normative decision, not scientific, so there is an essential incoherence in the position. In general, this logical problem is ignored and the policy makers simply assume that their policies follow from the so-called facts.
However, there has been a long debate in philosophy about what science actually is, and what the scientific method is. There is no consensus on this, and most positions have been technically refuted. The work of Paul Feyerabend is one example of someone opposing all such positions:
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feyerabend/
Given this, we should be highly sceptical about mantras of "trusting the science," as these will generally be about trusting the dogmas of those proposing the hypothesis. After all, most science is simply false, and this has been proven:
https://www.midwesterndoctor.com/p/the-deadly-rise-of-scientism
"One of the greatest challenges each society faces is deciding what constitutes "truth." Whoever holds that power wields enormous influence and steers the direction of the society for better or for worse.
For centuries, "truth" was delegated to the ruling institutions of the time, and hence truth was simply the narrative which conformed to their interests. Then, during the enlightenment period a new idea emerged—that truth could be determined empirically through experimentation and data.
This in turn gave birth to the scientific revolution, and while not perfect (as vested interests would still try to make their "narrative" be truth irrespective of what the scientific data showed), scientific inquiry began shaping the direction of Western Culture, and in a rocky fashion gradually moved society forward, giving us many of the benefits we take for granted today.
Sadly however, the tendency of ruling interests to want to monopolize the truth never went away and we've watched a curious phenomenon emerge where science, riding on the social credit earned by the success of its revolutionary discoveries, has gradually transformed into something not that different from a state religion. Given that science was originally meant to be a way to move beyond truth being monopolized by the dogmatic institutions which ran society, it is quite tragic that science has become one as well.
As a result, science has more and more become the practice of "trusting scientific experts" and not being allowed to question their interpretations of the data—or even see it. This is very different from what science was originally intended to be—the collective endeavor of scientists around the world to put forth ideas and have the ones that stand up to scrutiny become the generally accepted standard.
In turn, we continually see "experts" put forth ideas which are clearly wrong and hurt a great number of people but help the corporate sponsor who paid the expert off. In the past, this behavior would be called out, but since those same corporate sponsors also own the media, these "experts" are shielded from scrutiny, and science has simply become every public voice echoing the expert's pronouncements.
This was best illustrated by Fauci's infamous defense against a Congressional inquiry for his complicity in creating COVID-19, the disastrous policies he had inflicted upon America throughout the pandemic, and the fact he continually lied about his conduct—frequently doing so in an audacious manner that self-evident to anyone who looked at the publicly available footage of Fauci.
To defend himself, Fauci argued he was "the science," so criticizing anything he had done was unacceptable as it equated to an attack on science itself.
It's easy to criticize, but they're really criticizing science because I represent science. That's dangerous. To me, that's more dangerous than the slings and the arrows that get thrown at me. I'm not going to be around here forever, but science is going to be here forever."