A paper I read this morning argues that whether individuals recognize a person’s scientific expertise depends on the cognitive worldview, and their tendency towards hierarchical or communitarian thinking:

SSRN-Cultural Cognition of Scientific Consensus by Dan Kahan, Hank Jenkins-Smith, Donald Braman

The authors argue that these differences do not reflect a devaluing of science, but rather cultural tendencies towards expert recognition and the ability to track what expert consensus means. I don’t think you can conclude that; the fact that a person is predisposed toward egalitarian or communitarian thinking means they themselves do not value the ideas of those who study something more than anybody else’s take on it. Perhaps that is culture, but it definitely shows a de-centering of expertise.