I would like the scientific community to commit itself to a period of rejuvenation. In my mind, scientists are the original great explorers and at times, it seems exploration into uncharted waters is too often sacrificed for whatever will minimize risk. I want science to resolve to renew their dedication to the expansion of all horizons of knowledge. Of course, this is a massive task. Science has become a big business and like in other corporations, shareholders demand a maximum return for a minimal investment. Science must resolve to emphasize the necessity of risk, exploration, and the hidden dangers of gaining some small increase in value at the expensive of laying the foundation for much larger and sustained long-term gains.
-RTJ
4 comments:
This is actually something I have thought about for a long time. Perhaps I am just a hopeless romantic. What happened to the days when we did experiments to find out things? To educate ourselves on the world around us for the sake of knowledge? It seems to me that this sort of thinking is a minor side-note to the task of creating data that can be published. I agree, TAKE A CHANCE! Publish negative data. Explore a ridiculous hypothesis. We all know that is how real discovery seems to happen. Piece meal chipping away at a huge problem will yield piece-meal chips of data. Sometimes we all need to admit that we got into science to discover something totally novel, off-the-wall, and potentially only trivial (if not ground-breaking). [end of rant]
I have actually thought about this same topic for a long time, and of course I will spin it my own way. Perhaps I am a hopeless romantic, but what happened to the days when we did experiments for the pure intent of gaining knowledge of the world around us. Too often it seems that we do experiments for the sole purpose of publishing and not for educating. Sometimes we all need to admit that we all want to discover something totally off-the-wall, and perhaps trivial. Publish negative data. Test a ridiculous hypothesis. 'Piece meal' chipping away at huge problems will probably only yield 'piece meal' data that can take a lifetime to form a coherent story.
sorry, i didn't read the whole 'approval' thing the first time. you can erase the second rant. the first one was better
I couldnt agree with you more, T. The term "minimum publishable unit" makes me sick... Why not try to actually delve deeper into something and make some meaningful contributions, rather than do the smallest amount of work possible?
Also, I would like to bring the pdresearch blog to everyone's attention. We have three authors (all MSU alum or current students), and cover current research on neurodegeneration.
pdresearch.blogspot.com
Post a Comment