• Question: What is your least favourite thing about science?

    Asked by ginge97 to Damien, Rachael, Simon, Suzi, Tim on 18 Jun 2011. This question was also asked by Emily, smileyface123.
    • Photo: Suzi Gage

      Suzi Gage answered on 18 Jun 2011:

      Hi @ginge97
      This is a good question.
      Sometimes being a scientist is really frustrating. Either you can’t get enough people to make the results of your experiment mean anything, or a small mistake in your experiment design means that you have to start again. Everyone makes mistakes now and then, but if you don’t notice it immediately and carry on collecting data or running your statistics, it can feel like you’re wasting time.

      So that is pretty annoying sometimes.

      What’s your least favourite thing about science?

    • Photo: Damien Hall

      Damien Hall answered on 18 Jun 2011:

      I’d say everything that Suzi said – and then also the waiting! In my area, I have to interview people to get the data I need, and so first of all that means contacting a load of them and hoping that they’ll get back to me and say that they’d like to be interviewed. Sometimes they don’t get back to me for ages, or sometimes they get back to me and say that they don’t want to. Of course, I then respect that and don’t contact them again, but sometimes I want to say “You’ll love it! I won’t do anything bad with your data! Why not? Pleeease!”. You can’t do that, though …

      But the good times make up for that – when you make a discovery and you have enough data to back it up, and when your experiments go well. That’s why I do this!

Comments

  • Photo: ginge97

    ginge97 commented on :

    Thankyou Suzi for answering my question. That sounds very interresting but frustraating at the same time if the experiment goes wrong just because of one little thing.
    Thankyou Damien for answering my question aswell. Oh right, i agree with you aswell about when you said that if they don’t want to then you don’t keep mithering them. 🙂