• Question: Have other scientists ever not agreed with your work?

    Asked by Tabby to Carmen, Daniel, Laura, Noel, Steph on 11 Mar 2015.
    • Photo: Stephanie Dyson

      Stephanie Dyson answered on 11 Mar 2015:

      Yes! This happens all the time in science but it especially happens with modelling because people don’t trust the world we do. My lab have a very strict way of making sure we can prove that the data used in the model comes from real biological data and that our models match the biology well though and this helps convince people sometimes

      Steph

    • Photo: Noel Carter

      Noel Carter answered on 11 Mar 2015:

      None of my work has been that controversial. My clinical collaborator has worked on transplant techniques that have not always been liked at the time- but then were proven correct (but surgeons are quite argumentative!!).

    • Photo: Carmen Denman

      Carmen Denman answered on 12 Mar 2015:

      Hi Tabby,

      In science you always need to ‘back up’ your theories and hypotheses with good quality data, and it is important that your data or findings can be reproducible and statistically sound when tested. Having said that, I have had reviewers or competitors question data of mine, but upon further explanation or clarification I have upheld my results. So, in science you don’t usually just share findings without having repeated them many times and been sure the result is real. Of course there are cases in the media sometimes of individuals making up data, just to look good on paper!

    • Photo: Laura Garcia Ibanez

      Laura Garcia Ibanez answered on 12 Mar 2015:

      Hi Tabby! I am still very early in my research career so I haven’t seen myself in such situation yet. But it is very important before publishing or sharing results that you repeat your experiments some times and that the results you get are always consistent and repeatable. Cheers!

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