Recently, I participated in a training program to become an Internal Auditor (based on the ISO9001-2002 certification). During this training we spent a lot of time discussing how companies record their processes. In general, the processes are usually a mix of SOP’s (standard operating procedures), PP’s (Production Procedures), WI’s (Work Instructions) and then there is the “un-recorded procedure”. This last one is the most interesting to me. Within the acceptable parameters of the ISO standard you can have procedures within a process that do not need to be formalized, codified or written down anywhere. It is perfectly acceptable to have a training/word-of-mouth system for passing along information. All of this leads me to the question – Are there processes in Biology which are un-recorded and how will Science account for them? We will reach a point in some process that we will eventually just have to resort to faith in the system itself or will we be able to find the subtle word-of-mouth equivalent?