Here is a point that I have tried to get at in my previous essays, but I don't think I phrased it in quite the right way, so I attempt to here: Data is counterintuitive. This is the reason why empirical logic is preferrable to spiritual intuition. Oftentimes, a surprisingly high number of times, in fact, you will make an assumption, and hold a belief, that you know is right, and you hold this belief for days, for months, for years, or maybe even for decades, but then, when you actually look at the research, and see the data, and see what the science says, you find out that you were wrong, and the data said something completely other than what you and your intuitions had assumed, even though your assumption seems like it was likely to be right, and what the data says is counterintuitive and unexpected, maybe even strange and odd and unlikely. And it can be embarrassing, to be honest, that you were convinced you were right, and then someone else, or maybe even your own research, points to the data, and proves you were wrong. But, if you believe that data comes from the external world, and that your intuition comes from your own internal mind, and if you believe that the external world is objective reality, then, if your data and your intuition conflict, trust the data, do not trust your intuition, and throw your assumptions out the window and embrace the data. And one should never hide from the shame or embarrassment of having made assumptions that turned out to be wrong, by clinging to them and refusing to abandon them in the face of the data; instead, be intellectually honest, admit you were wrong, and move forward on the basis of what the data shows. There's nothing wrong with making an assumption, but there is something wrong with refusing to abandon it in the face of data that contradicts it. However, I say this only with this one caveat, that raw data says nothing, it only says something to you after you use your logic and reason and your reasoning mind, independently, to analyze the data.
So, to sum, in a pithy motto: You are what the data says you are, and you should do what the data says you should do. (There is also a capitalist version of this motto: You are what the market says you are, and you should do what the market says you should do.) Also, as I have written before: True knowledge comes only from experience.
Also note that in recent politics there have been efforts to politicize science, and the purpose of this short essay was not to have anything to do with that. This short essay is not intended to be political at all, it deals only with epistemology, logic, and the philosophy of science, in a neutral and unbiased way, which is how all data-driven science should be.
