#1
NPR points out that scientific knowledge is constantly evolving and changing. It's not just completely new facts that are discovered. Researchers also take new evidence into account and then use it to reexamine what we thought we already knew.
"The key is that scientific conclusions don't change on a whim. They change in response to new evidence, new analyses, and new arguments—the sorts of things we can publicly agree (or disagree) about, that we can evaluate together. And scientific conclusions are almost always based on induction, not deduction. That is, science involves drawing inferences from premises to conclusion, where the premises can affect the probability of the conclusions but don't establish them with certainty," NPR explains why we can trust science despite facts changing.
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Bored Panda was curious to get the OP's thoughts as to what we could all do to stay up to date with (at least some) of the changes in science. The idea is so that we don't feel like we've fallen too far behind.
"The point here is to find reputable and reliable sources," redditor u/karatass91 said that this lies at the core of good scientific education.
On top of that, they suggested taking on an even more direct approach to education by "establishing online connections with researchers." This way, you could be at the cutting edge of science... at least in the areas that interest you the most.
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#9
According to the OP, there probably will never be a point in time when the facts that we know about the world will never change again.
"I don't think that the facts about the world will stop changing, since our understanding evolves with ongoing research and discoveries," they told Bored Panda.
#10
The author opened up to us that they never thought that their question would get so much attention on Reddit. "I know it was a good question, but never had such an expectation," they said.
"I think it went viral because I believe every redditor went to school and they could come up with an interesting answer," the redditor noted that the topic was something that most of us could deeply relate to.
The reality is that we all have some knowledge blindspots. There are gaps in our knowledge that we’re not even aware of. These can range from misconceptions about common sense things to false interpretations of more complex situations.
The best that any of us can do is to keep an open mind when we come across information that runs counter to our experiences. This means being humble enough to recognize that nobody is perfect, that everyone makes mistakes, and that we might be wrong in some cases. Scientific knowledge is rarely ever stagnant for long.
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However, being open-minded does not mean being naive. This doesn’t mean accepting any and every piece of information that comes your way.
As one study from 2021 pointed out, people tend to think that repeated information is more truthful than new information. This is known as the illusory truth effect. To put it simply, the more often we hear a claim, the more we think that it’s true. This means that all people, no matter how educated, can fall prey to everything from fake news to advertisement campaigns.
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What facts from your own school days have you seen get disproven within your lifetimes, dear Pandas? Is there any information from your lessons and lectures that you personally find hard to let go of even when you know it has been updated? We’d like to hear what you think—tell us about it in the comments.
#19
