I think maybe the origin of data thing can be useful; if at some level you believed the first fact, e.g. a bear lives in that cave, and then you saw bear shit and bits of dead fish lying around near it and thought, that must be from the bear, but then found out from somebody else that there wasn't a bear in the cave - there would still have to be something behind the bear shit and bits of dead fish, and would still do well to be cautious near the cave. A more modern example - phlogiston. On believing that there was this thing called phlogiston that was taken away from things that burned, many explanations were invented for other similar reactions. Phlogiston turned out to be bull, but the truth, oxygen, was the opposite of phlogiston, and fitted into the other explanations very smartly indeed, just backwards. And indeed, the exchange of electrons in redox reactions that don't involve oxygen is exactly like phlogiston, and if we hadn't had phlogiston in the backs of our minds still, maybe it would have taken us longer to figure out.

The phlogiston doesn't exist?

Next you'll be trying to tell us that you don't create steam by combining Hottite with Wettite!

;-)