You'll pardon me if I laugh up my sleeve at the phrase, "Do your own research", because so often it is used by people who think "doing their own research" means finding a YouTube video with someone who sounds credible telling them what they want to hear. Doing your own research properly involves being able to read and evaluate the primary sources and their data, and whether they designed their studies in such a way that they're meaningful, and whether the conclusions they reach are justified by the data they show. It's a skill that can be learned, and not enough people learn it.

It's also not about kneejerk rejection against what "the scientific establishment believes". You got better data? Show them. You DON'T have better data? Well then, that's a lovely handwaving dance.

“But the fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.”
― Carl Sagan