Science today is not what is was yesterday. And next week, it won’t be what it is today. That, in a nutshell, is the problem with science. It changes.

Science is the accumulation of our best knowledge at the moment, the result of testing and retesting ideas. This seems to have been hard for some people to grasp, both those who use science to guide our response to COVID-19 and those who deny the developing science or even deny that the virus exists.

That may be partly the fault of scientists, partly the fault of the media and mostly our own fault for failing to understand how science works.

No one should leave school not knowing that science is a method, one we all use daily. Say you get the idea you can hang a clock on the wall with duct tape. You hang the clock and walk away thinking, “My idea worked.” The clock falls and smashes. The idea didn’t work. Hanging the clock was a test, an experiment, and you learned the idea was wrong.

That’s how science works. Idea, theory, test (experiment), result. Whether your idea was right or wrong, you pass the result to others, who test it again and again. We advance as results pile up.

We have gone through the process time and again in the 16 months since we were blindsided by COVID-19. Scientists knew almost nothing about it. And some guidelines based on the science of the day suggested a lot that turned out to be wrong or misleading.

Dr. Anthony Fauci told us on March 8, 2020, that face masks wouldn’t protect us. Twenty-six days later, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention advised everyone to wear a mask to protect herself and others from the expelled droplets that carry the virus.

We were also told to clean surfaces often. Turns out, the virus doesn’t live long on surfaces and passes to others touching a surface less than once in 10,000 contacts. Yet, at my credit union, tellers still sanitize the counter between customers.

Some who disparage Fauci, our leading infectious disease scientist, seem unable to move with the science. Take the lieutenant governor of Texas. Dan Patrick repeated in January 2021 that Fauci had said a year earlier that the coronavirus was “not a major threat.” Patrick neglected to add that Fauci had said the situation could change. He said it twice. The situation did change, and the science changed with it. Patrick didn’t.

You may recall that Patrick also told FOX “News” that he would rather die of COVID-19 than see the economy tank in overreaction to the disease. He said the rest of us old fahts should willingly die to save the economy, too. Uh, no.

Scientists share responsibility for misunderstandings. Former Surgeon General Jerome Adams admitted that advice on masks had been confusing. First it said masks wouldn’t protect us, then it said only those with symptoms need masks, then it said masks were in supply too short for everyone — this was correct — then it said everyone should wear one.

Scientists didn’t always make clear as their advice changed that they were working in hurry-up mode, trying to learn everything about a new thing while staying accurate and cautious. I sympathize with the scientists. They devote their careers to science, and they may come to take for granted that of which the rest of us need regular reminding.

When scientists put out the word about developments in their field, they rely on the news media to report it accurately. That’s tough today, when so many people get their information from sources that bear no responsibility for telling the truth.

If you get information from FOX “News” and similar outfits, you probably don’t get the truth about the science. I recall Laura Ingraham, a star at FOX, asking why doesn’t science tell us about COVID-1 through COVID-18 instead of just COVID-19?

In today’s instant-news environment, reporters seldom have time to add context. Take the blood clots from the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. Six people have developed serious clots after receiving the J&J jab. That’s six in 7.2 million, or one in 1.2 million.

Let’s do the math. The CDC says that in a year one of every 1,000 people can expect to get a clot. So, among the 7.2 million who got the J&J vaccine over 40 days (one-ninth of a year), we could expect that 72,000 would get blood clots within a year. With the J&J vaccine, six got clots. Extend that out to a year (six times nine) and you get 54 clots.

Not to minimize the pain or danger to those six people, especially the one who died, but the expected rate of blood clots is far, far higher than we have seen with the J&J vaccine.

Hidden factors may lurk in J&J’s vaccine, and science is wise to be cautious as it looks for them. But should we drop plans to get vaccinated? The best accumulation of results so far says no. It worked on smallpox, and it won’t work on COVID if we don’t use it.

Bob Neal had a blood clot in 2010. Docs at Franklin Memorial and Maine Med shepherded him back to health. He completed his (Moderna) vaccinations 39 days ago. Neal can be reached at [email protected].