Slashdot Mirror
The Neuroscience of Screwing Up
resistant writes "As the evocative title from Wired magazine implies, Kevin Dunbar of the University of Toronto has taken an in-depth and fascinating look at scientific error, the scientists who cope with it, and sometimes transcend it to find new lines of inquiry. From the article: 'Dunbar came away from his in vivo studies with an unsettling insight: Science is a deeply frustrating pursuit. Although the researchers were mostly using established techniques, more than 50 percent of their data was unexpected. (In some labs, the figure exceeded 75 percent.) "The scientists had these elaborate theories about what was supposed to happen," Dunbar says. "But the results kept contradicting their theories. It wasn't uncommon for someone to spend a month on a project and then just discard all their data because the data didn't make sense."'"
They'd get 42 dollars?
Neurotransmitter consumption cycles? Come on, if you want the +5 Insightful, you really need to couch your hypotheticals in terms of cars.
The scientific process is bullet proof. The folks who "do science" not necessarily so.
What exactly are you advocating?
That, in battle against an opponent armed with a firearm of some sort, one should adorn one's self with the scientific process, and not the folks who are following it, for greatest effect?
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
For the original speaker and probably his intended audience it's implicit, but on Slashdot I think it's appropriate to extend Feynman's quote to add "well-designed and independently-confirmed". I've performed a few experiments in my day that Conservation of Mass disagrees with.