Science, pseudoscience, evidence-based practice and post truth

We live a time when it is easier to question the value of statins to fight cholesterol or the efficacy of vaccination and replace these treatments with homeopathic substances that lack any demonstrated therapeutic effect, promoting BILIEF to the category of PSEUDO-SCIENCE, than rely on evidencebased facts supported by the SCIENTIFIC METHOD. These are challenging times for clinicians and we need to be aware of the ‘‘siren songs’’, question easy TRUTH even when it looks EVIDENT and the recent so-called POST TRUTH where beliefs seem to be stronger than FACTS, and find the path for safe EVIDENCE-BASED PRACTICE. This brief paragraph contains several terms and constructs that we often use, hear or read but the definitions of which require more careful reflection, the goal of this editorial. Paradoxically these are both great and hard times for science. On the one hand, we are witnessing the highest research activity we have ever known in optometry and vision science and in every discipline in general. Unfortunately, this is also proving a perfect culture medium for clinical practice that is far from being supported by good research. Such practice has always existed, yet it has been presumed that increased research activity would either provide proof for it or abolish it completely. Instead, in some cases, neither of these two options takes place and this practice has found an ecosystem in which to thrive and is even covered with a veneer of credibility by being published here and there. We should not confuse ‘‘evident’’ thoughts with facts supported by ‘‘evidence’. Evident is sometimes used