Knowledge Advances Incrementally

Learning and advancing one’s personal and professional goals is a dynamic and active process. We never truly “finish” learning anything. We get better and better at tasks the more we practice them. We increase the accuracy of our data the more analysis on bigger and more relevant sets of samples we collect and measure. The scientific method is built on accepting the facts as they get unveiled, fully realizing that optimization and accuracy comes gradually with more work done and more information gathering.

One of the present global issues that I want to address here is the erroneous practice of some individuals that point out shifts in recommendations and gradual changes in the understanding of a scientific/medical phenomenon, and using these shifts and changes in the information shared as basis for doubt and denial for the whole process. Certainly when it comes to complex and novel discoveries/puzzles to solve, there will be a period of optimization and incremental advancement in understanding. These could lead to changes in conclusions from where things were first reported, to where they are now, and to where they will be in the future as more and more science is uncovered and facts are checked and replicated.

The act of refuting what we presently know and understand of a novel discovery or challenge to tackle, simply because the present understanding doesn’t match exactly what was previously reported and shared, is simply an act of refusing to accept that human beings are, by nature, dynamic learners. We gain more as we try, experience, and process information. Humans are not the kind of species that begin and end their lives with the same genetically programmed set of actions and behaviors inherited from the previous generation and are carried down to their progeny. Each one of us knows more now than we knew when we were younger. Experience matters. Time to perform more measurements and analysis brings us closer to accuracy and understanding. In other words, we get wiser as a whole, the more we experience and accumulate data.

Individuals that insist on focusing on the divergence of information coming from science and medicine, that’s separated by a non-trivial amount of time, are trying to sow doubt and nullify the value gained by executing the scientific method to its fullest potential. Accuracy, and a full understanding of anything complex, requires optimization, replication and diverse set of experts working separately and together, to incrementally achieve the most precise understanding of a challenge or novel discovery.

Our society benefits from scientifically assessed and understood information. Evidence-based decision making is far superior to other forms of societal choices, made by and for the public. And as mentioned here, the precision and accuracy of scientific information gathering advances the more time is allowed for investigation and understanding. We should celebrate and embrace changes accumulated with more data analysis and scientific rigor applied to test the facts uncovered along the way.

It is a self-correcting and enhancing mechanism, built into the scientific method and research process that we implement as scientists and healthcare researchers and providers. Sure this means that some data and knowledge will shift with time, but this should be seen as progress, and we should not let mis-informers and pseudoscience spreading behavior and individuals hijack the system of self-correction and improvement built into our method.

And as a last point to make: Scientists, medical researchers, and everyone involved in healthcare, research and academia should find ways to communicate and/or amplify voices of communicators that are on the front-lines of providing evidence-based information to the public. The best use of the scientific process is when the product of this process is shared with everyone.
