How Ghost Hunting Changed the Way I Do Science
Imagine you’re an undergrad student in your second year with a lab. You’re finally comfortable with all of the lab techniques, and are confident enough to run your own experiments. You spend months testing a hypothesis, encouraged by positive results, only to hit a brick wall, and realize that the data you thought supported your idea was actually driven by something else, whether an overlooked variable or a well-known process. Almost every researcher I've met experiences this arc: the excitement of discovery followed by the disappointment of realizing that the result was a covariate-induced illusion. I’ve fallen victim to this arc a number of times, and each time it can drain the curiosity and motivation of both myself and my colleagues. But what can we do about it? First, I’d argue that this is a “canon event” in the life of a young scientist, and it's important for growth. But more importantly, we should reframe how we approach our work. Instead of working towards proving our...