"Ah, the sweet sting of science" 🐝
“Ah, the sweet sting of science”—my colleague declared enthusiastically during a team meeting, in response to my latest experiment’s fiasco.
I could tell that he was excited to roll up his sleeves and get to the bottom of it.
But I was less excited.
The fiasco involved a routine protocol that I’d done many times before. Yet this time, for whatever reason, one of the controls hadn’t worked.
I felt slightly ashamed that it had happened on my watch, and it felt even worse to fess up in a group setting. Naturally, I blamed myself.
Though thankfully, no one else did. Everyone in the room was as perplexed as I was, but still supportive, which made all the difference.
It’s unsurprising that I felt so much negativity, because as scientists, we’re conditioned to present our research as a smooth-sailing, mistake-free, and linear journey. Pick up any scientific paper, and you’ll likely find a logical, picture-perfect story.
But hidden beneath that perfection lies errors, dead-ends, confusion, and periods of being stuck.
Though this “norm” is slowly changing, published journals remind me of Instagram—we all know that no one’s life can be that perfect all the time!
The reality is that a lot can go wrong in biological research.
Or at least, what we perceive as wrong.
Failure means different things to different people. Whereas everyone will admit that dodgy controls are a failure, for some, results that contradict their original hypothesis count, too (though I can’t say that I agree).
Regardless, failure doesn’t feel great.
But for scientific knowledge to advance, it’s an absolute must. Each failure provides valuable information, either for your method or your scientific hypothesis, and that’s always useful.
So when it comes to handling failure as part of a team, focusing on that “glass-half-full” mentality is vital. It helps create a positive team culture, where people don’t shy away from being open when things don’t work out as expected. Your team can help you brainstorm potential improvements or new directions.
Unfortunately, self-blame is a tougher nut to crack, and the negative feelings stemming from failures can sometimes feel overwhelming.
But being open with your colleagues and the wider scientific community will help us normalize failure.
It can be easy to forget that we’re all human, after all.
'Til the next one,
🫢 "What's your biggest lab f@&$ up?"
Case-in-point: Customer Success Scientist Nathan Hardingham shows us how normalizing failure is done on LinkedIn. Brownie points for discussing screw-ups in lab automation—an area where making mistakes can feel particularly scary.
👀 What we really mean by "science is hard"
Our Chief Scientific Officer Markus Gershater ponders whether we use biology's complexity as an excuse when an experiment fails—and explores what we can learn if we don't accept failure in biology as commonplace.
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🎧 Watch now: DOE Office Hours—The basics
"That was fun"—commented our DOE evangelist Sid Sadowski after he and JAJA Arpino ran their first DOE Office Hours on the DOE basics. From answering questions on factors and resolution, to analysis and augmentation, they covered a lot of ground. Want to catch up?
🧊 Next up: Applying DOE to your experimentation
No rest for the wicked. On September 12th at 11 am ET / 4pm BST, Sid Sadowski is back hosting his second session in our new webinar mini series, DOE Office Hours. Together with Customer Success Scientist Nathan Hardingham, he'll be answering questions on how to apply the DOE theory to real-life experiments in a lab.
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