For the past few weeks I've been working on the figures for my next paper. It's been very crazy, we thought we knew the topic, but the more we uncovered about the dynamics the more it changed the story. But we finally got the foothold and produced the story.
That's just how science is. Some people become so attached to their original ideas that they lose sight of the point of all this: to allow the process to inform us, not just confirm what we already know. That is a dangerous mindset to have in research, the whole point of doing experiments and testing different things isn't there to confirm what you already know, it's to find a new way of looking at the world, find a new explanation for what happens, or to find knowledge previously unknown. Believing that you know the field you are studying absolutely hampers the scientific method, deadens the mind to novel hypotheses. Or as Isaac Asimov put it, "The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' but 'That's funny...'"
On the other hand there are those who spend all their time in the shadows, focusing on minute. Sure, they can crank out publications, but many of them are meaningless. They become so enamored with the small details of whatever system they're studying that they lose their place in the big picture. I recently heard a seminar that had this sort of mindset. The speaker couldn't answer a big picture question afterwards because they interpreted it as a technically detailed inquiry. Coming to science with the mind of a technician just produces technical results.
Well, I've got my new story put together in figures and notes, and now it's time to get writing!
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