• Question: do other scientists think your work is right?

    Asked by mollzz to Tom, Matt, Hugh, Douglas, Antonia on 17 Jun 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Antonia Hamilton

      Antonia Hamilton answered on 16 Jun 2010:

      well at least some of them do. the papers I’ve written about my work have been read and cited about 600 times, so that suggests there are around 600 other scientists somewhere in the world who think my work is useful.

    • Photo: Hugh Roderick

      Hugh Roderick answered on 16 Jun 2010:

      Yes they do. To get money to do the research that we do in the lab I work in we have to apply to a research council who decide who gets the money that the government has decided to spend on research. We have to say why we want the money and our application is in competition with a lot of other researchers across the UK for a relatively small amount of money. The different applications for money are assessed and scored by other scientists. So that I am doing the work in the first place means other scientists have thought that the work is right, or at least potentially right.

    • Photo: Matthew Hurley

      Matthew Hurley answered on 17 Jun 2010:

      This is a really good question! You’ve hit the nail on the head with what science is all about. Science is all an argument (or debate) with people doing different work that results of which slightly differs. THe last experiments (done by all the scientist in the field) inform the next and eventually the experiments converge at the answer that everyone believes is the right one.

      So to answer your question – others think my research is right (in that the experiment is done properky and comes out with the right answer, but some think that it will not help all the people that new treatments will need to. I think in future we will need to use combinations of new treatments (so my stuff alongside other stuff).

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