Scientists Anonymous....

Lately I've felt like I need a 12 step program to help me deal with scientific research.

So, I'm going to start SA, scientists anonymous.  I'll begin.....

Hi, my name is Mary and I'm a science addict. I'm addicted with to doing experiments and I'm hopeful that every time I perform a new experiment it will work, and I will get that euphoric feeling of accomplishment.  I like to do experiments in the lab and try to show that our complicated body is simple and define a linear pathway.

The first step is admitting I have a problem and I'm powerless over the addiction.  Clearly, I'm delusional since our bodies are designed/have evolved in a manner that is far more complex then a linear pathway regulating each cell function.

Here are the 12 steps adapted for scientific anonymous....

• Step 1 - Admit we were powerless over our addiction - that our lives had become unmanageable

• Step 2 - Come to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity (Usually your advisor)

• Step 3 - Make a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of your advisor  

• Step 4 - Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves, you have at least 5 years of soul searching while completing your dissertation

• Step 5 - Admitted to your fellow labmates and yourself the exact nature of our wrongs

• Step 6 - It's time to have your qualifier and to have your committee remove all these defects of character

• Step 7 - Humbly asked your committee to remove our shortcomings and make you a PhD candidate, or permission to graduate

• Step 8 - Made a list of all experiments you have failed at, and become willing to make amends with the fact that about a year or more of research is unusable.  

• Step 9 - Make direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others (apply this to reviewer's comments for grants/papers)

• Step 10 - Continue to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it, or you may never graduate.

• Step 11 - Seek  through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with our Advisor, praying only for knowledge of Advisor's will for us and the power to carry that out

• Step 12 - Have a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, becoming cynical usually works, try to carry this message to other addicts/graduate students, and to practice these principles in all our affairs

Science is like yoda.  You can't get a straight answer and usually a question is answered with another question.