PerspectivesAre you interested in submitting a Perspective Article? Be sure to read The Science Advisory Board's Editorial Guides for Perspective Articles. Click here. The Holist Versus the Determinist Way of Doing Science (Or the Way We Do Our Daily Experiments) by Arseni Markoff, Ph.D. A Member Since December 2001 Most members of The Science Advisory Board are active in some field of research—mainly the biological sciences. Working for government, industry or academia, we are often required to excel in our scientific pursuits. How is our performance measured? In academia, peers who review our results in scientific journals and at conferences assess our productivity. In industry, our direct supervisors and employers review our progress through reports and updates. These are incontrovertible truths—one could say—no need to expand further. Yet, how do we obtain our results? Why is it that some of us are more successful or less creative then others? Obviously the answers to these questions depend upon many factors: societal as well as personal and subjective as well as objective. They are also influenced by the nature of the scientific enterprise. In industry one is not required to publish as much; in academia publishing is by far the most important predictor of our success. We need our peers in order for the scientific process to function. In industry and government these people are our task pilots, in academia—more or less our equals. Science needs to be written in order to emerge as a cultural fact, otherwise it will not be recognized as such. A dichotomy is apparent when observing how science is conducted. First, there is the prerequisite to obtain meaningful results and second there is the desire to make them public. (The analysis of this juxtaposition should be a subject of another Perspective, since traditions of education and personal qualities often predict the outcome of this dichotomy.) Some of us are better writers while others are better working at the bench. Everyone should agree that the ideal scientific unit should combine individuals from the first as well as from the second group in order to be successful, but nevertheless everything depends on the experimental result. The kernel of the scientific “operating system” is the experiment. What makes an experiment “successful”? What are the measures of “success”? First, one should not forget that scientific tasks are not necessarily the questions we ask in our experiments. It is up to the individual performing the experiments how these task are to be assembled. Generally, there are two main approaches that can be taken along with a third, which is a combination of the two. They are the “holist approach” and the “determinist approach”. Most of us are advocates of one of those two strategies, because they reflect the different ways in which we think and ask experimental questions. I open up debate in the Discussion Forum at http://www.scienceboard.net/forum/FORUM.asp?FORUM_ID=33&CAT_ID=12&Forum_Title=SAB+on+SAB as to which approach is better. The Holist Approach The holist approach is based upon the proposition “I do it because it works.” It is embodied by the question, “Will it work for me if I do experiment A described in paper B using set up C?” This approach is encouraged by pragmatic education and does not accommodate any aesthetic dimensions of the experiment in terms of ordered and constructive actions. It is embraced mostly by medical graduates working in the biological sciences, but also by graduate students from other disciplines in natural sciences. The approach works surprisingly well if combined with a little knowledge of “what should not be done” and good scientific guidance from a supervisor skilled in constructive thinking. Good example: A graduate student completes her Ph.D. thesis in three years and publishes two good papers in PNAS or EMBO, because she screened library X and found element Y. Bad example: A supervisor offers little guidance, but a graduate student nevertheless develops an accurate model for the lack of gene function only to find that a competing group has already published it. What now? An example taken from real life In a plant pathology lab, an attempt to create a selective medium for a bacterial pathogen is made. When asked how he did this work, the research assistant answers, “I mixed the whole Mendeleev table in different proportions and combinations and then looked to see if the bug grew.” The assistant then wonders why his medium precipitated when he mixed potassium chloride with silver nitrate. The supervisor does not know any better or is unwilling to correct him. A graduate student in the lab writes the substitution reaction on the black board to explain why a cloudy precipitate of silver chloride is formed is expelled from the lab. Individuals embodying this approach: •Graduate students annoying everybody with the chaos they create on their benches •Supervisors talking about science “in general” with results stuffed away in desk drawers awaiting confirmation from others before publishing Future career projections for students trained in this approach: •Sales representatives •Permanent lab research assistants The Determinist Approach The determinist approach is based upon the proposition “I want to do it this way, because I would expect to obtain this possible result.” This approach adopts the what if philosophy and its possible hypothetical answers and only depends on the degree of sophistication of the methodology used. It requires strong intrinsic knowledge of basic as well as applied science, and the experiments that are designed under this model are aesthetically very pleasing. Academic and industrial scientists who have good interdisciplinary knowledge and an appreciation of the scientific culture embrace this approach. Good example: A graduate student completes her Ph.D. thesis in five to six years and publishes a paper in Nature or Cell. Bad example: A graduate student who cannot publish a paper after many years of work because he has no data supporting his elaborate hypothesis. What now? Example taken out of real life: A university professor who analyzed and described a deviation of the Michaelis-Menten enzyme kinetic equation for polymeric substrates (cellulose) was not allowed a single graduate student for this risky project Individuals embodying this approach: •Organized graduate students and postdoctoral fellows who take care of everything and everybody in the lab •Supervisors with brilliant ideas who always find time to discuss these ideas with students and postdocs •Industrial scientists making important breakthroughs with innovative technologies Future career projections for students trained in this approach: •Non-trivial thinkers, usually with no permanent job opportunities To which group of scientists one belongs is normally a function of personal discretion and abilities. Generally speaking, the measures of success are also different for each group. But as it is well known from statistical thermodynamics and social developments, the truth is always somewhere in the middle! ### Dr. Markoff is a research associate at the Institute of Medical Biochemistry, University of Muenster, Germany. He is a member of The Science Advisory Board 2002-2003 Steering Committee. ### << Previous Next >> [ View All Perspectives ] |
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