I don’t think there’s any point entirely basing our personal opinions on knowledge that has been completely proven, tested, verified and peer-reviewed.
You’re just a consumer of scientific knowledge then, not a scientific explorer.
You’re not making brave new assumptions about the world you live in, using faculties like feelings, emotions, intuition, keen observation, curiosity, deductive logic, mental modelling, common sense etc.
It’s totally worth risking your reputation to come up with a new premise that can be up for mockery, ridicule, criticism, questioning, peer review, experimentation and testing.
That’s the only way new science and new knowledge can emerge.
Make you sure don’t forget the experimentation and testing part. Self-deception tends to be scarily high among Scientific explorers.
With the knowledge and the collaboration that internet provides nowadays, the number of people who can afford to and actually be full-time scientific explorers and use the scientific method in their domain is higher than ever.
If you already have a Scientific Explorer bent of mind, it’s not worth your time being just a Scientific Consumer.