Work on the Unknown
“Uncertain of success, they [scientists]toil in an obscurity that will deepen into futility if their work doesn’t pan out.” — Joshua Rothman
Joshua Rothman writes in, “How Does Science Really work?”, about two Nobel prize winning scientists in 1977 on their work about the molecular structure of TRH, a hormone that helps release other hormones throughout our bodies. Roger Guillemin and Andrew Schally were the scientists on this project. They worked with tons of pounds of brain tissue from numerous types of animals to do their research. After Rothman tells this story is when he states, “Uncertain of success, they toil in an obscurity that will deepen into futility if their work doesn’t pan out.”
This quote speaks directly to Guillemin and Schally’s work with the brain tissue. They were not certain if they would have success in their work and they just continued to work into the unknown of their experiments hoping that it would all work out in the end and if it did not work out, all the experiments would have been pointless. This is really what science boils down to. Scientists put all that they have into an experiment hoping that what they are working on will bring forth a grand result, but when their experiment fails, all was done in vain and will all be considered pointless.
A question arises from this tricky situation. How can science experiments become more fruitful and not end in futility? What practical applications can we add to experiments to get a desired outcome a greater percentage of the time?
