• Question: how do you cope with failure when you are a scientist

    Asked by chazo123 to Hitesh, Hywel, Mae, Nik, Tiffany on 17 Jun 2012.
    • Photo: Hywel Owen

      Hywel Owen answered on 17 Jun 2012:

      Failure should be part of real science, because you’re trying out things you haven’t done before. If your idea doesn’t work, think of a better one!

    • Photo: Mae Woods

      Mae Woods answered on 17 Jun 2012:

      I sometimes think as long as you are trying your best and telling everybody exactly what you are doing, then failure can only help, because it stops others from wasting their time and making the same mistakes.

    • Photo: Nicola Ibberson

      Nicola Ibberson answered on 18 Jun 2012:

      I think you have to set your goals differently as a scientist. Although you may have a theory or idea in mind, such as ‘I would like to prove that X gene is the cause of X condition’, you can’t get so caught up in ‘proving’ your theory that anything that proves the contrary is viewed a failure. You have to be an inquisitive sort of person, and see the outcome of any experiment – whether it is what you were expecting or not – as a pathway to something exciting and new.

      In terms of things failing because of some technical reason, this just gives you an opportunity to learn more about the methods you use, which makes you a better scientist in the long run. 🙂

    • Photo: Tiffany Taylor

      Tiffany Taylor answered on 19 Jun 2012:

      Things don’t always work out. In fact, when you start a new project you have to assume things wont go the way you thought they would for a long time until your figure out all the things that could go wrong! You just have to keep going and hope you’ll get there soon. Then one day it’ll all come together and you’ll have more data then you know what to do with!

      That’s how it tends to work for me anyway. It can be hard though when things aren’t working.

    • Photo: Hitesh Dave

      Hitesh Dave answered on 20 Jun 2012:

      You will always get negative and positive results in science..In my case, if i get failed in particular experiment I try to go at the bottom of the mistakes…I will ask questions to myself that why it went wrong? what can be done to ractify this?…We need to have good patience in science; and I believe everyone here has learnt by their mistakes…

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