This week, the science of medicine bumped up against the foundations of American medical consumerism: that more is better, that saving a life is worth any sacrifice, that health care is a birthright.

Two new recommendations, calling for delaying the start and reducing the frequency of screening for breast and cervical cancer, have been met with anger and confusion from some corners, not to mention a measure of political posturing.

The backers of science-driven medicine, with its dual focus on risks and benefits, have cheered the elevation of data in the setting of standards. But many patients — and organizations of doctors and disease specialists — find themselves unready to accept the counterintuitive notion that more testing can be bad for your health.

Counterintuitive? Baloney! There is nothing intuitive or counterintuitive about these questions. There only is the latest data, advancing understanding through scientific analysis. Leave the psychologizing for the nutballs and skeptical paranoids.

“People are being asked to think differently about risk,” said Sheila M. Rothman, a professor of public health at Columbia University. “The public state of mind right now is that they’re frightened that evidence-based medicine is going to be equated with rationing. They don’t see it in a scientific perspective…”

“They” aren’t even attempting to read and examine a scientific perspective. “They” are only accustomed to being led about by pundits and talking heads.

Dr. H. Gilbert Welch said, “Now we’re trying to negotiate that balance,” he said. “There’s no right answer, but I can tell you that the right answer is not always to start earlier, look harder and look more frequently…”

As throughout history, it may take decades for medical culture to catch up to medical science. Dr. Rothman pointed out that it took 20 years for the public to accept the discovery in 1882 that tuberculosis was caused by a bacterium and not by heredity or behavior. More than 160 years after the Hungarian-born physician Ignaz Semmelweis posited that hand-washing could prevent the spread of infectious disease, studies still show that half of all hospital workers do not follow basic hygiene protocols.

Dr. Welch has the appropriate historic perspective. When analytical skills were less, testing not as precise, a shotgun approach had statistics on its side. The fact of that diminishing as a requirement is a positive. Discouraging unnecessary fattening of the wallets of medical specialists ain’t bad either.