If your project ever goes wrong do you carry on or give up until you find the answer you predicted or want?

Question: If your project ever goes wrong do you carry on or give up until you find the answer you predicted or want?

Asked by bunsenburner01 to Hermine, Katy, Laura, Nathalie, Paula on 14 Jun 2010 in Categories: Your Research.
- Paula Salgado answered on 13 Jun 2010:
  
  First of all, a scientist should never “want” a specific answer… The basis of science is to formulate hypothesis, then design experiments to test it. If the results you get in your experiment are not what your hypothesis predicted, then you need to reformulate the hypothesis, design new experiments and see what results you get… As a friend of mine said, we are constantly trying to prove we are wrong – and by doing that, we show we are right and come up with new ideas and new experiments.
  
  I’ve had projects that didn’t go very well and I didn’t give up – I just kept trying new experiments and different conditions. However, sometimes, you have to realise that the project you’re working on is just not a problem you can solve with the technology you have available.
  I’ll give you an example: I was trying to determine the shape (structure) of proteins of a virus that causes skin cancer. I was trying to purify those proteins using bacterial cells – and after many unsuccessful attempts, we found out that these specific proteins can’t be isolated from bacterial cells in a way that they still have their shape intact. Since we did not have the technology to purify the proteins in a different system, we eventually had to change how we could understand these proteins and the mechanism by which they caused cancer.
  
  We didn’t give up, we just changed approach. 😉
- Hermine Schnetler answered on 13 Jun 2010:
  
  I never give up. I will always try to understand why it is not working. If your results are different from what you have predicted, it can be very useful and you might have discovered something new or proof that some of your initial assumptions were wrong. If this happens you just start over.
- Nathalie Pettorelli answered on 14 Jun 2010:
  
  Hi there,
  
  A project going wrong is not a project where results do not match predictions – this is actually the definition of a very interesting project! A project going wrong is when someone is hurt in the field, paper work delays starting date of the project, money is lacking to carry on the project, i.e. a project generally goes worng when there are logistical problems.
  I rarely give up on things & projects – I believe being stubborn is a requirement in science 🙂
  Have a great day
  Nathalie
- Katy Mee answered on 14 Jun 2010:
  
  Haha, well it depends whethe you want to cheat or not!
  
  In my experience, things never quite turn out how you expect them to and that’s the whole point of doing science – things aren’t always predictable. I think if you’re project goes wrong, you should always carry on and try to find out why it went wrong – in science it’s just as important to know what doesn’t work as to what does work because you’re narrowing down your options. Never give up kids 😉
- Laura Dixon answered on 14 Jun 2010:
  
  It depends on the circumstances – I work with live animals so if something goes wrong that may jeopardize the animals safety or health then we definitely stop the project. If its a small thing likeequiptment not working or the animals not behaving as we expected we carry on and try to figure out why things went wrong. Quite often in science you end up with an answer that you weren’t expecting or that you didn’t predict 🙂

Question: If your project ever goes wrong do you carry on or give up until you find the answer you predicted or want?

Comments