Martin Schwartz believes the answer to the reproducibility and ethics crisis in research is to embrace an attitude of serene indifference. Schwartz, professor at Yale University and ASCB member, writes in the Journal of Cell Science, “a major confounding variable in this process [of starting a research project] is the human tendency to want our hypotheses to be correct.” In short, if you want something to be true, your experiment is more likely to prove that it’s true. It’s time to get over that. Discoveries, not discoverers, are what really matter in science, Schwartz argues, and confusing the two is what is contributing in these hyper-competitive days to irreproducibility and outright fraud in science.
Schwartz believes that mandatory ethics classes aren’t the best solution. Instead he proposes that scientists cultivate a new state of mind, what he calls serene indifference or what Buddhists call nonattachment. “We all have hopes, desires and ambitions. Nonattachment means acknowledging them, accepting them, and then not inserting them into a process that at some level has nothing to do with you.” Schwartz writes. “An experiment is a conversation with nature, where we ask a question and listen for an answer, then interpret the answer.”
According to Schwartz, by appreciating this bigger picture, scientists have a better chance of getting those answers right.
About the Author:
Christina Szalinski is a science writer with a PhD in Cell Biology from the University of Pittsburgh.
