From knowledge to certainty

Research news - Evidence is continually growing in importance for political, societal, and individual decisions, despite increasing talk of an impending 'post-factual era'. Evidence is based on data that is collected in a scientific fashion, but is also a social phenomenon. How and by whom is it created and used, and what impact does this have? This is what a new research group funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and represented by the Technical University of Munich (TUM) has set out to investigate. When the findings of scientific procedures are used to prove statements and ultimately to assist with decision-making processes, they attain the status of evidence. Because enormous quantities of knowledge are being produced in today's society, we are constantly also discovering new things that we do not know. Hence, evidence plays an increasingly significant role as an accord on the validity of knowledge. How evidence is generated and how it is handled - according to the research group's assumptions - is influenced by three processes: the growing need for reliable prognoses, the increasing mechanization of the production of knowledge, and calls from non-experts to participate in the latter. An example of one of the new issues which arise from the third point can be seen in the case of digital patient platforms. Today, thanks to digital technology and apps such as CureTogether or PatientsLikeMe, patients can collect and upload data about their symptoms and the effects of therapy. But how reliable is this collected data for medical research and how do they influence the behavior of the users or new research projects?