The difference between breakthrough science and "normal" science

[Wise Young]

This commentary from Steven Novella is very interesting. A novelist and doctor, he recently posted the following.

http://www.theness.com/neurologicabl...sp?Display=129

Breakthrough Science

* By: Steven Novella
* On: 07/02/2007 14:14:13
* In: Skepticism
* Comments: 1

In response to Friday’s post, daedalus2u wrote the following comment:

“I agree with you that the vast majority of advancement in science is incremental and comes slowly bit by bit. That is the type of science that is best evaluated by peer review, what Thomas Kuhn calls "normal science".

"Breakthough" type science is not well evalutated by scientific peers.

For example the idea that Helicobacter pylori causes ulcers was not accepted at first. The reason was because everyone "knew" that ulcers were caused by stress and too much acid. A bacteria hypothesis was implausible. Would researchers proposing such a treatment that was counter to "conventional" wisdom receive funding today? Probably not. A non-conventional treatment is considered extraordinary, and so requires extraordinary evidence to be considered worth funding. But attaining extraordinary evidence requires collecting data which requires funding. A catch-22.

My own experience in trying to get my nitric oxide research taken seriously is that potential new treatments can be ignored because people are too busy to evaluate them. Everything is easy to ignore until there is overwhelming evidence. Somethings are ignored even then, for example evolution.”

A person posted a response that pointed out that science is really not hostile to truly innovative ideas. I agree that it often seems as if scientists are hostile and some ideas are just before their time and are very slow to gain acceptance. The idea that spinal cord injury is curable, for example, has been a very difficult concept to get across to scientists and doctors. It has been a 30 year fight for me (I use to say 20 years but just realized that I have been doing this for 30 years now).

A vast majority of scientists now believe that it is possible to cure spinal cord injury and, despite the paucity of funding, some of the best scientists in the world are continuing to work on the problem. This is an amazing turn around from the days when people actually snickered in the audience if you said that you were developing therapies for spinal cord injury. For many years and even now, the burden of proof for therapies of spinal cord injury is greater than that required for other diseases.

At the frontiers of science, where evidence is often lacking, one has to proceed on faith. That faith may or may not be justified by the results but one has to have faith to go ahead and spend the effort to obtain the evidence. It is very easy to be discouraged. There are many hardcore skeptics in science. That is what they are trained to be. They continue to pummel you, long after you think that you have knocked them out and have won. You have to continue to fight for your ideas. That fight is what makes for science progress.

Wise.

[Kratos]

im fighting with my doc's 3years now becouse they dont want to accept that idea that SCI is (will be) curable! i am ashamed ewen to talk with my frends about cure for SCI.. dr.Y i hope that we will prove one day that ewerything is posible, you fight the good fight! for me there is nothing else to do then to sing monty python song-always look on the bright side of life! LOL