“Maturity is perseverance in the face of uncertainty”
This was spoken by scientist at the beginning of his talk at a conference in San Francisco last year for the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union. He was referring to uncertainty in forecasting flooding in watersheds. As a non-modeler, experimentalist and field worker my research and work has taught me that uncertainty is everywhere, but the only way to learn and move forward is to persevere in spite of this uncertainty.
This philosophical statement goes well beyond research and covers all areas of life. I’ve heard it said that two world wars and a great depression is what forced the young countries of America and Canada to grow up. I have experienced personal tragedy and hardship which has had the same effect on me. Perhaps it is only in trouble that we grow?
During my masters, I encountered problems growing and replicating a virus I was working with in the lab. I lost about one month of my life to this problem which came out of nowhere when I thought everything was finally working well. I was totally discouraged. This failure drove me to do a couple good things though. The first was to seek counsel. I talked to a former TA who was a post-doc and experimentalist about my problems. She told me something I have never forgot. “Peter, in science we ONLY learn when we fail”. The second thing I did was to sit down and think about why the virus wasn’t infecting the host bacteria and what I experiments I could do to figure this out. This forced me to use my imagination, something I wouldn’t have done if everything worked as planned. I eventually ended up talking to a researcher in our department who quickly suggested an effective solution to my problem and I was back on track to graduating!
I think progress can be measured by considering how far I am towards reaching my objective or goal. Hypotheses are like the specific outcomes we imagine or predict. Hypotheses are designed to be “falsifiable” or easily disproven if not correct. A failed hypothesis does not mean a failed objective. Failed hypotheses are the only way we learn what we need to learn to achieve the objective. An objective might be to “compare the transport of bacteria and viruses through groundwater”. A hypothesis would be “bacteria will be transported faster and further than viruses” and this would be based on previous experience or theory. The hypothesis can still fail while the objective is achieved.
So why do we need hypotheses in science? Making a hypothesis that turns out to be correct, based on a theory or conceptual model developed from experience, validates the theory or model. When this happens (and it is published in a rigorously peer reviewed journal) we take a step towards the complete understanding the natural world. I don’t believe that complete understanding will never be achieved by humans, however on average people in developed countries live twice as long today as they did 200 years ago because of thousands of these steps.
In an essay he wrote on evolution, my father, a biology and math teacher at a high school in northern Ontario once said “science is the formalization of learning through experience”. I always told my students this at the beginning of the semester to break down their fear of formulas and jargon. If science is the formalization of learning through experience then scientific maturity could perhaps be defined as persevering in learning through as many experiences as you can obtain in your field. Many people associate science with arrogance. In fact it takes quite a bit of humility to admit you don’t know the answer and maturity to persevere until you find it.
There is also a difference between professing science and doing science. Professing always looks into the well lighted past and communicates that to people enlightening or in-forming them. Doing stumbles forward into the future and uncovers new areas of light. Both are important.
