The details of science how to interpret empirical data are more of a debate than lay people may know and scientists may care to admit, and it is not as cut and dry as the media sometimes present it. For example, we have been studying Alzheimer s disease for decades and yet there is still a hotly contested debate in the science community over which protein, tau or amyloid, is more responsible for the disease s progression. Scientific consensus is hard to come by and is generally reserved for but a few topics: gravity, vaccines, evolution and most recently the safety of GMOs, to name a few.
Debates are healthy and generally occur when insufficient research has yet to be done on a topic and therefore the data has yet to paint a clear picture. Unfortunately, activists often get a hold of some of the data on controversial topics and contort the science, and some in the media who are out of their depth on that issue get swept up in the misinformation blitz. All too often this results in an ill equipped public attempting to incorporate this latest science conventional wisdom, which is sometimes anything but, into their health decisions. But because the message has been skewed there are often negative consequences.
Read More over at Genetic Literacy Project.
