As I sit here, sifting through piles of 5 year-old data in writing my dissertation, all sorts of revelations and memories are floating to the surface.
…and that’s just half of them
Looking back, it becomes clear that in my first few years in lab I was, how do I put this… an idiot. I missed clues in my data, failed to follow leads, designed my experiments backwards and upside down. It’s a miracle I got as far as I did. At the same time, I can take great comfort in being able to look back and see how far I have come, how much I have learned, and how much confidence I have gained (sadly, confidence won’t make the gaping black holes in my data seal up).
I have made progress, this much I know. I relaxed about some things and became more stringent about others. I can better see the important parts of experiments and how they fit together instead of getting caught up in trivialities. (How much more progress I could have made if I wasn’t quite so slow on the uptake is something I am trying not to think about.) I now have the markedly un-fun task of explaining in my dissertation why I didn’t see the obvious statistically significant difference between two conditions that I tested four years and three projects ago. D’oh.
Is this an on-going process? Do grown-up, mature scientists look back on their data and see things they missed the first time around? Does it get any less frustrating? Are there fewer D’ohs the older and more experienced you get? I sincerely hope so.
P.S. Dissertation update – I am writing! Slowly (very sloooowly) but surely, I am writing. I think the blank page was most intimidating of all. Now that I have started it seems a little less daunting. Only a little less though. I am still pretty daunted.
P.P.S. All apologies to Muse, but I just had to steal their album title – it’s too appropriate.
It is quite natural to get confused by your own thoughts. During a long journey, that at times appear endless, one tends to have illusions of reaching the destination. When a new fact emerges that one tends to believe that this is final truth.
The darkness arising out of knowledge is more dangerous than the darkness arising out of ignorance.
A scientist shouts ‘Eureka’ more often because of his illusions of having understood the truth. Unfortunately, or probably fortunately, we soon realize our mistake and move forward. Euphria, Frustrations, joy, and sorrow are our companions in this journey that are with us on rotational basis.
Best of luck…just remember the truth is farthest when one feels that one is closest to the truth and it is only when one realizes that one is farthest from the truth that one starts moving in the direction of the truth.
PS: I am not a philosopher, like u I also seek to understand nature.
Hi,
I agree with the above, that this is phenomenon that is likely not to go away, but is part of what we do.
I wonder though, whether this is also a reflection of how our brain works. Once we are stimulated with a specific type of information, we are able to pick out more and more detail about the subject. A brief example: When you (or your partner) are pregnant, all of a sudden all you see is pregnant people everywhere. If you buy a yellow car, all you notice are yellow cars driving around.
I guess what I am getting it is, that throughout your studies, you add little pieces of new information all the time and every piece that you add gives you a new angle with which you can/could look at your previous results. So at the end of your project, it is just natural to find new aspects of your data that you were previously not aware of, simply because your brain looks at them differently with all the new information you have added over the years.
This is of course no solution to the problem, but it is maybe easier to accept the fact, that this is unlikely to change. And maybe that is a good thing, because it is interesting and fascinating to discover new aspects of your work.
All the best in completing your revised data analysis. Next time you find a new aspect of your data, just smile and enjoy the progress you have made.
PS: great blog by they way!
What you say Nikolaus is so correct. We suddenly sort of have glasses through which what was not apparent a moment back is revealed to us in all its glory.
That is why we have to be careful in our assessment of the new facts because more often than not we see what we want to see and hear what we want to hear.
The veil of ‘I Know’ is the most dangerous veil and that is why I had stated that darkness arising out of knowledge is more dangerous than the darkness arising out of ignorance.
But we are not designed to move in jumps either mentally or physically. Each step is important and each step is a move forward.
As another graduate student a few years in, I can completely relate to your feelings. Thing is, writing your thesis and completing those experiments is a learning experience. I can’t even relate to where I was 3 years ago in terms of knowledge and expertise, I’m sure you’ve come far yourself. Don’t look back on time or experiments lost, but rather the information and experience you’ve gained in the meantime than gave you the perspective to evaluate your results correctly.