Medical Miracles or Misguided Media?

Continuing with the topic of blurring the line between medicine and "miracles", here is a link to a great analysis by Los Angeles Times Staff Writer David Shaw on how the media is, to the detriment of the public, blurring the line. ..Maurice.

Medical Miracles or Misguided Media?: "Science is both a methodical and a somewhat messy process, a gradual exploration of the unknown. It moves slowly, with each study building on the one before it--brick by brick by brick. Most discoveries are partial improvements, steps forward (or backward), subtle gradations and even contradictions. There's seldom a true end point in science. Almost invariably, the breakthrough that's published today is the final stage in a series of studies that began years, perhaps decades ago, and it, too, may still be subject to revision by future studies. Genuine breakthroughs, giant leaps forward--penicillin, for example, or the Salk polio vaccine--are rare."