The Science of What We Don't Know

Although this particulr study isnt about fraud, it is about the unreliability of science as we know it. When I talk to people about how much we don't know, it's based on the experience that comes with analyzing research all the time. Previously known "facts" are constantly reversed, turned upside own, inside out, amended, and revised. This paper is about an increase of of over 50% of what was previously known in this area of RNA -

In one of the most famous faux pas of exploration, Columbus set sail for India and instead 'discovered' America. Similarly, when scientists at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg, Germany, set out to find enzymes - the proteins that carry out chemical reactions inside cells - that bind to RNA, they too found more than they expected: 300 proteins previously unknown to bind to RNA - more than half as many as were already known to do so.

The study, published online June 1 in Cell, could help to explain the role of genes that have been linked to diseases like diabetes and glaucoma.
"We are very excited that, unlike Columbus, we found what we were looking for: well-known enzymes that bind to RNA," says Matthias Hentze, who led the study at EMBL with Jeroen Krijgsveld. "But we never thought there was still so much unexplored territory, so many of these RNA-binding proteins to be discovered."

Its probably best to view science not as fact, but as our best guess at the moment based on how we perceive the world around us. Tweet