Super! thanks a lot Pranesh for sharing this. i have been always fascinated by this entire notion of the scientific error and ultimately the elusive and slippery nature of a "conclusive" proof. just as a pointer for more discussion, here is an extract from Chandrasekhar’s “Truth & Beauty: Aesthetics and Motivation in Science”
Freeman Dyson has quoted Weyl as having told him: “My work always tried to unite the true with the beautiful; but when I had to choose one or the other, I usually chose the beautiful.” I inquired of Dyson whether Weyl had given an example of his having sacrificed truth for beauty. I learned that the example which Weyl gave was his gauge theory of gravitation, which he had worked out in his Raum-Zeit-Materie. Apparently, Weyl became convinced that this theory was not true as a theory of gravitation; but still it was so beautiful that he did not wish to abandon it and so he kept it alive for the sake of its beauty. But much later, it did turn out that Weyl’s instinct was right after all, when the formalism of gauge invariance was incorporated into quantum electrodynamics best Abhishek http://abhishekhazra.blogspot.com/ On Fri, Feb 5, 2010 at 12:15 AM, Pranesh Prakash <[email protected]>wrote: > A whole scientific journal dedicated to things that didn't work out as > expected? http://jsur.org (via ./) > > From the post: > >> So where is the problem? The problem lies with discovery, and credit given >> towards it. It would be very hard to get anyone to share awkward, unexpected >> or yet-uninterpreted results. First, as I said, no one wants to look like an >> idiot. >> > > > > http://bytesizebio.net/index.php/2010/01/31/jsur-yes-sir/ > > JSUR? Yes, sir. (Updated 2-FEB-2010) > January 31st, 2010 > > > The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new > > discoveries, is not ‘Eureka!’, but ‘That’s funny…’ -Isaac Asimov > > Thanks to [Ruchira Datta][1] for pointing out this one. > > [1]: http://ff.im/eX05t > > Science is many things to many people, but any lab-rat will tell you that > research is mainly long stretches of frustration, interspersed with flashes > of satisfying success. [The best laid schemes of mice and men gang aft > agley][2]. A scientist’s path contains leads to blind alleys more than > anything else, and meticulous experimental preparation only serves to > somehow mitigate the problem, if you’re lucky. *This doesn’t work, that > doesn’t work either and this technique worked perfectly in Dr. X’s lab, why > can’t I get this to work for me? My experiment was invalidated by my > controls; my controls didn’t work the way the controls were supposed to work > in the first place. I keep getting weird results from this assay. I can’t > explain my latest results in any coherent way*… these statements are typical > of daily life in the lab. > > [2]: http://www.electricscotland.com/burns/mouse.html "But Mousie, thou > are no thy-lane, In proving foresight may be vain: The best laid schemes o' > Mice an' Men, Gang aft agley, An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain, For > promis'd joy! --Robert Burns" > > This stumped and stymied day-to-day life is not the impression of science > we get from reading a research paper, when listening to a lecture, or when > watching a science documentary show. When science is actually presented, it > seems that the path to discovery was carefully laid out, planned and > flawlessly executed, a far cry from the frustrating, bumbling mess that > really led to the discovery. There are three chief reasons for the disparity > between how research is presented, as opposed to what really goes on. First, > no one wants to look like an idiot, least of all scientists whose part of > their professional trappings is strutting their smarts. Second, there are > only so many pages to write a paper, one hour to present a seminar or one > hour for a documentary: there is no time to present all the stuff that did > not work. Third, who cares about what *didn*‘*t* work? Science is linked to > progress, not to regress. OK, you had a hard time finding this out, we > sympathize and thank you for blazing the trail for the rest of us. Make a > note for yourself not to go into those blind alleys that held you back for > years and move on. We’re not interested in your tales of woe. > > Only maybe these tales of woe *should* be interesting to other people. If > you make your negative results public, that could help others avoid the same > pitfalls you had. If you share the limits of a technique, a protocol or > software then someone can avoid using it in a way that does not work. A > lab’s publications are actually the tip of the sum total of its accumulated > knowledge.Every lab has its own oral tradition of accumulated do’s and > dont’s. Not oral in the literal sense: they may even be written down for > internal use, but never published. **UPDATE (2-FEB-2010):** ***most > *peer-reviewed journals don’t like stuff that does not work. Thanks to > Mickey Kosloff for pointing out the [Journal of Negative Results in > Biomedicine][3] and [The Journal of Negative Results – Ecology and > Evolutionary Biology][4].** > > [3]: http://www.jnrbm.com > [4]: http://www.jnr-eeb.org/ > > Until now. > > The [Journal of Serendipitous and Unexpected Results][5] aims to help us > examine the sunken eight-ninths of the scientific knowledge iceberg,** in > life science and in computer science. (So an additional field over JNRB and > JNREEB).** From JSUR’s homepage: > > [5]: http://jsur.org > > > Help disseminate untapped knowledge in the Computational or Life Sciences > > > > Can you demonstrate that: > > > > * Technique X fails on problem Y. > > * Hypothesis X can’t be proven using method Y. > > * Protocol X performs poorly for task Y. > > * Method X has unexpected fundamental limitations. > > * While investigating X, you discovered Y. > > * Model X can’t capture the behavior of phenomenon Y. > > * Failure X is explained by Y. > > * Assumption X doesn’t hold in domain Y. > > * Event X shouldn’t happen, but it does. > > #### The problem with the JSUR model, and the nature of discovery > > I expect[ JSUR][5] will be a great way to comment on methods and > techniques. Indeed it will codify a trend that has been going on for some > time: public protocol knowledge sharing. Many sites like [openwetware][6], > [seqanswers][7] or the [UC Davis bioinformatics wiki][8] have been doing > this for a while. Not to mention a plethora of blogs. Scientists are willing > to share their experience with working protocols and procedures, and if this > sharing of knowledge can be now monetized to that all-important coin of > academia, the peer-reviewed publication, all the better. > > [6]: http://openwetware.org > [7]: http://seqanswers.com > [8]: http://wiki.bioinformatics.ucdavis.edu/index.php/Main_Page > > So where is the problem? The problem lies with discovery, and credit given > towards it. It would be very hard to get anyone to share awkward, unexpected > or yet-uninterpreted results. First, as I said, no one wants to look like an > idiot. Second, unexpected or yet uninterpreted results are often viewed as a > precursor to yet another avenue of exploration. A scientist would rather > pursue that avenue, with the hope of the actual meaningful discovery > occurring in the lab. At most, there will be a consultation with a handful > of trusted colleagues in a closed forum. If the results are made public, > someone else might take the published unexpected and uninterpreted results, > interpret them using complementary knowledge gained in their lab, and > publish them as a *bona-fide* research paper. The scientist who catalyzed > the research paper with his JSUR publication receives, at best, secondary > credit. The story of Rosalind Franklin’s under-appreciated [contribution][9] > to the discovery of the structure of DNA comes to mind. Watson and Crick > used the X-ray diffraction patterns generated by Franklin to solve the three > dimensional structure of the DNA molecule. Yet she was not given a > co-authorship on the paper. (And she did not even make the results public, > they were shared without her knowledge.) Unexpected results are viewed > either as an opportunity or an embarrassment, and given the competitive > nature of science, no on wants to advertise either: the first due to the > fear of getting scooped, the second for fear of soiling a reputation. I > expect JSUR would have a harder time filling in the odd-results niche, but I > hope I am wrong. > > [9]: > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosalind_Franklin#Contribution_to_the_model_of_DNA > > But if you have protocols you are willing to share…what are you waiting > for? Get those old lab notebooks, 00README files, forum posts and start > editing them to a paper. You are sitting on a goldmine of publishable data > and you did not even realize it. > > Finally, here are two scientists who never declined sharing their > unexpected results[10] > > [10]: http://www.youtube.com/v/EFebGZ7FJQQ > >
