The Edges of Knowing

The system that brought us antibiotics also dismissed handwashing. We should remember that when we're told something "hasn’t been proven."

We've built a fortress of certainty, with peer-reviewed journals as the gatekeepers and randomized control trials as the currency of truth.

This fortress keeps us safe. It filters out the snake oil and the wishful thinking. It's how we know that vaccines work and bloodletting doesn't.

But what about the truths that exist outside the fortress walls? Things that are true, but haven’t yet been proven by conventional testing?

We all (now) know that the earth revolves around the sun. But when Galileo first supported this theory he was tried by the Roman Inquisition, found guilty, and forced to live the rest of his life on house arrest. 

We all (now) understand germ theory. But when Ignaz Semmelweis told colleagues that washing their hands before delivering babies decreased maternal mortality, he was scorned, forced from his position and eventually committed to an asylum.

We all (now) understand evolution. But when Charles Darwin first published “The Origin of the Species,” dozens of newspapers and magazines ridiculed him by publishing caricatures depicting him as an ape. 

The most significant breakthroughs often begin as anomalies - observations that don't fit neatly into our existing frameworks. The scientist who notices something odd in her lab. The parent who sees patterns in their child that don't match the textbooks. The practitioner whose results defy explanation.

These edges of knowing - where experience runs ahead of explanation - are the frontier where tomorrow's scientific consensus often begins.

The trap isn't in valuing evidence. The trap is in dismissing the evidence of our eyes and lived experience when it hasn’t yet been blessed by the institutional machinery of knowledge.

Too often we conflate "hasn't been proven" with "has been disproven" or even "cannot exist."

Science at its best isn't about shutting down possibilities, it's about investigating them. It's about remaining curious when faced with the unexplained rather than forcing observations to fit existing models.

What if instead of saying "that can't be real because it hasn't been proven," we asked "what would it mean if what you're experiencing is real?" 

Embracing curiosity before certainty is how we continue to expand what we know rather than merely defending it.

After all, reality doesn't wait for our permission to exist.