Claiming the Scientific High Ground: New Frontiers and Ancient Wisdoms in the Age of COVID-19

Abstract

“Follow the Science” and variations thereof have been oftheard phrases uttered by politicians and members of the media, accompanied by featured colleagues of the research community in the context of attempts at dealing with the current global pandemic and its impact on all aspects of our lives. We, the Editors of Global Spine Journal, have from our inception onward pushed hard to improve not just our scientific insights through careful selection and quality reviews of research articles but also attempted to provide greater foundational scientific knowledge to our readership by being one of the first journals in our field to provide regular systematic reviews, metanalyses, and also consistently featured in-depth educational articles on basic research methodology. In this context, we felt it apropos to briefly reflect on what the foundations of the so-called “Scientific method” and its applications in the quest for truth in the “Study of Life” actually are, especially as seen in context with the currently propagated “Follow the Science” mantra. Further, it might interest our readership to consider the relationships of scientific methodology relative to the application of real-world experiential methods, including heuristics and empirical decision making. The Greek Philosopher Aristotle (384–322 BC) is commonly credited with having provided the first clear definition of scientific methodology for the “study of life” in his text “Posterior Analytics,” featured within a larger compendium titled “Organon.” These are four remarkable succinctly-stated principles as outlined in “Posterior Analytics”: