> How do we come to know things we didn't know before? And how can we trust those conclusions? IMHO, this is the heart of what discerns scientists from enginee

> How do we come to know things we didn't know before? And how can we trust those conclusions? IMHO, this is the heart of what discerns scientists from engineers. Yes there is plenty of overlap, but to me this is the principle component. In engineering, the correct answer almost always exists. Enough eyeballs on the problem, sufficient double- and triple-checking converges on high confidence. Scientific problems may not have a right answer, or gaining confidence has diminishing returns, and at some point you decide that's enough sigmas. You can scrutinize in so many ways but there's always blind spots. (Data) scientists generally have to be way more comfortable with uncertainty. And as you mention, the easiest person to fool is yourself.