Ancient Medicine Modern World

Posted in Curiosity, Medicine | 2 Comments

2 Responses to “Discovery”

1. on 19 Mar 2007 at 9:42 am1Joe Shirley

   I couldn’t have said it better! The challenge in those situations is to take your perplexity very seriously. It’s very easy to dismiss an anomaly as a mistake, a misperception, or an oversight. So a good discoverer must be a) present enough to notice when little things don’t meet expectations, b) curmudgeonly enough to be annoyed enough at the interruption to make the effort root out the cause, and c) impetuous enough to toss out the whole ball of wax and start over in order to incorporate the new/weird data into a more complete model within which the (confirmed) anomolous results are fully within expectations.

   I know the last two traits are not part of the stereotype of the discoverer, but I find it’s true in my case. I take it personally when things don’t fit, because I’m building a model here and I want it to work. And I have to be willing to nullify huge amounts of work in one fell swoop in order to accommodate new information without simply sweeping it under the rug. I got news for you. It ain’t easy. But it sure is fun.

2. on 19 Mar 2007 at 1:27 pm2Michael Max

   “curmudgeonly enough to be annoyed enough at the interruption to make the effort root out the cause” l like that.

   I know in practicing, it always gets interesting when things don’t go they way you expect them to. Especially, when a case looks straight forward, but then does not respond as expected.

Leave a Reply

Name (required)

Mail (hidden) (required)

Website