What I am not so proud as a scientist

Science is the present verification of natural facts without ultimate certainty!

The earliest instance of new information upending certainty was principles of hydrodynamics. Following Archimedes, we learned a substance of higher density will sink in the substance of lower density, yet a floating ship made of steel and iron led us to understand the concept of total density.

Science is pursuit of truth and more well versed we became with the methods we can seek which ones of these are experimentally reproducible and which ones are not. Now, experimental reproducibility is the sacrosanct concept in science. Just because something is not experimentally reproducible does not make them untruth. However, as scientist we are trained to achieve experimental reproducibility and that has the most prime space in science.

Measurement innovations in different spheres of science:

Natural truths are vast, and each has modification of the methods of measurement. Measurement is of course at the heart of determining reproducibility. I am not so proud of myself not to immerse in methods in related fields of science even peripherally. For example, what are the latest measurement methods being adopted in Large Hedron Collider and why those method and their modification are necessary now? I have no clue even in a very summarized form. Such things are commonplace for scientists because science is vast, and it is very difficult to keep up. However, paraphrasing current US National Eye Institute director Dr. Michael Chiang one can state, the best innovation is likely to come learning a thing or two from outside your immediate field and improvement in methods or adopting new concepts is certainly part and parcel of that.

Evaluation of multiple lines of evidence:

The second aspect that I have come to realize that we are somehow not imparting our trainees or mentees to look for multiple independent lines of evidence to derive conclusions. Again, there are underlying reasons for these. Some lines of evidence becoming out of fashion because another line/method is far superior and have achieved a sacrosanct status, lack of availability of infrastructure and instruments, time constraint and pressure to yield results, publish and various other reasons.

Perceived importance:

The third aspect is to properly weigh the importance of different aspects of science. Even in small sphere of science people do not often appreciate the wide view. I recall in Intel Pentium science competition in 2003 (ISEF2003) when some judges would like to pick some high school students as potential awardee because they have worked on their research area. Despite the fact that there were students who had build on simple ideas, diligently worked on those, had evidence of regularly working as they presented their lab notebook/research experimental books. Some of the high school students that a few judges (postdocs, junior research assistant professors) wanted to pick clearly were presenting coached ideas that they even did not fully understand, experiments were not done by them. Some experimental paradigms needed much more advanced training and maturity and there were no lab notebooks. The sole reason to zero on a few specific students by these judges was that they worked on research area that they are working on. We all perhaps suffer from is giving importance to the area that we are familiar with or get infatuated with but there is a bigger area that we are often unfamiliar or fully do not comprehend. Not weighing the importance of work small are large in the context of a wider science is somehow difficult and having a perspective from a narrower angle is something is clearly one that when I realize I am not proud of myself as a scientist.