>In fact the "hick" position is the scientific one.
It is not. It is evidence-based, and experiment-based, but this is not enough for it to be scientific. For that, it also needs to fit with previous experimental data, and not contradict an existing scientific model (expanding on it and replacing it with a more general model is fine).
You can say the experts in this case are being overly cautious, but there's no denying that
>If a perishable food (such as meat or poultry) has been left out at room temperature overnight (more than two hours) it may not be safe.
This is a fact, as established by scientific studies. The problem is the danger 'threshold' that leads one to behave in accordance with the drawn conclusion:
>Discard it, even though it may look and smell good. Never taste a food to see if it is spoiled. Use a food thermometer to verify temperatures. Never leave food in the Danger Zone over two hours; one hour if outside temperature is above 90 °F.
> This is a fact, as established by scientific studies.
It's also an incredibly weak claim. It makes an extremely qualified statement about a very broad set of things.
You could just as easily say "any object left on the kitchen counter overnight may poison you" and that would be true even if the incidence of poisoning by recipe card in kitchens is approximately zero. Let alone the meat products that literally exist to be stored in the open.
Something loosely deriving from scientific studies is no more 'science' just for that fact than something deriving from uncontrolled empirical evidence is. In this case the statement is so obvious as to be kind of useless for prediction.
It is not. It is evidence-based, and experiment-based, but this is not enough for it to be scientific. For that, it also needs to fit with previous experimental data, and not contradict an existing scientific model (expanding on it and replacing it with a more general model is fine).
You can say the experts in this case are being overly cautious, but there's no denying that
>If a perishable food (such as meat or poultry) has been left out at room temperature overnight (more than two hours) it may not be safe.
This is a fact, as established by scientific studies. The problem is the danger 'threshold' that leads one to behave in accordance with the drawn conclusion:
>Discard it, even though it may look and smell good. Never taste a food to see if it is spoiled. Use a food thermometer to verify temperatures. Never leave food in the Danger Zone over two hours; one hour if outside temperature is above 90 °F.