I had read Stuart Firestein’s previous book: Ignorance.
It was well written, well argued, and tempered with anger about where the
sciences are at this moment in history. It struck a chord with me because the
book spoke out fiercely against the prevailing psyche in academia, something
that was derived by the need to publish or perish. The author made a very
strong point about how this aversion is destroying the fundamentals of research
and pursuit of new knowledge as well as compromise the integrity of everyone
involved in science.
Indeed, Prof. Firestein is reiterating his point in this follow
up. He expresses the thought that it is an absolute imperative for scientists
and technologists to commit to rigorously accepting and examining our failures;
he admonishes us to actively seek opportunities to create failures, and he
proclaims that it is the failures that will fuel our innovation engines.
Prof. Firestein cogently argues in fifteen succinct chapters
why we must seek out failures.
In those fifteen chapters, he makes the case for taking more
chances, and experiencing failure. He is able to layout a very convincing case
that not only is failure something from which we need to learn from; indeed, failure
is something that we absolutely need to demand of our researchers and
scientists in order to make advances in science.
He makes his case mostly in the pharmacological and
biological world since that is his milieu in the sciences, but the knowledge
and the lessons that he provides us are general in nature. The advices are
something that could be applied to both applied and pure research and for
things that are far broader than just the biological world.
In Chapter One, Prof. Firestein lays out the case that we
are terrible at defining what failure is because of the negative nature of the
word failure. He cites Gertrude Stein’s quote: “A real failure does not need an
excuse. It is an end of itself.” The
quote concisely defines the bad failures, the stupid silly kinds that we all do
because we were negligent, and those failures that lead us somewhere
interesting. The latter are the ones that we need to talk about, the ones that piques
our interest, pushes and allows us to investigate further, ask better questions.
Those are the ones that. that reveal surprising questions and/or gives us a
chance to re-evaluate our assumptions, understanding, and biases.
In Chapter Two, he discusses the meaning of Samuel Beckett’s
famous quote: “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail
Better.” Prof. Firestein goes into detail on what he thinks Fail Better means
and he discusses what he thinks what we should do to Fail Better. This chapter
was the one that really hooked me onto this book because I've always been
fascinated by Beckett's quote. I hadn't really thought about what failing
better meant until I read Prof. Firestein’s arguments. It clarified some of my
thoughts on the subject, so kudos to him for allowing me to think about it and
leading me to a clear definition of failing better.
In Chapters 3 and 8 Prof. Firestein goes after the
scientific method. He takes out the scalpel and dissects the whole idea of how
we do science, or the official written way we are supposed to do science. His willingness to take on the mythology of
the scientific method, which turned him into an apostate to the temple of
knowledge that is big science, is encouraging and very courageous. I think
coming from somebody like Prof. Firestein, who is a respected researcher and a
product of the system, adds weight to the argument and he doesn't disappoint. The
two chapters are very forceful, and it shows a lot of very deeply thought out
argument against the strawman that is the Scientific Method.
Chapters 4 and 5 are his argument on why failure is
something that is beyond what we think it is. We usually believe that failure
is something that should be ameliorated and something that should lead us to a
positive result. His argument is that failure is something much beyond that, much
like what Nicholas Taleb’s take about Anti-fragility. Being anti-fragile means
something beyond grittiness and resilient, it means more than just being able
to survive the bad fortune, it means being able to benefit and thrive when
circumstances are against you. In Prof. Firestein’s argument, failure leads to
attaining a higher level of understanding of what we're trying to study and it
leads us to discovering heretofore unknown dynamics within our knowledge base. It
is the negative result which will leads us to better and broader understanding
of nature. In Chapter 5 Prof. Firestein goes into a very impassioned argument
for the integrity of failure. The integrity of failure means that we are honest
with our results, we are committed to intellectual honesty in our work, we are
willing to broadcast our failures to our fellow researchers because we are
dedicated to the advancement of science over shielding our own fragile egos and
reputations.
Chapter 6 and 7 are interesting because they go into how
we're teaching the future of research and scientific investigations and how we
are putting a wrong public face on what scientific research truly entails. The
crux of it is that teaching future scientists the scientific method as the
means to do research we are handcuffing them to a mythology of what scientific
investigation is, which in turn stifles broad questioning of concepts and
ideas. In addition, by telling the non-scientific world that the scientific
method is the dominant mode of doing research, we are building up a fictional
impression in the general public of what scientists do on a daily basis,
thereby mythologizing doing science.
Chapters 9, 12, 13, and 14 has Prof. Firestein going deep
into his own milieu of biological and pharmacological research. The chapters
were interesting because I have no background in the area, so I waded in with
great interest but with scant background to really dig into what he was trying
to get at, I enjoyed it but I’m not sure I got everything that I could have out
of it. This failure was all on my part of not understanding.
In Chapters 10, 11, and 14, Prof. Firestein really gets
going philosophically. It was great reading; it was very interesting reading. He
talks about overcoming are negative connotation of what data that does not meet
with our hypothesis should mean to us and how we can get over that mental
obstacle. In Chapter 11 Prof. Firestein talks about Karl Poppers, a philosopher
who worked exclusively in the area of understanding what science is, or how to
differentiate between real science and bad science. It was a very educational chapter for me as I
have always been interested in Popper's work, yet I have not read Poppers
writing. Chapter 14 is where Prof. Firestein goes full force into the
philosophical idea of a plurality. Most of us are devoted to a monistic belief,
that there is only one single truth in this scientific world and that is just
not true. In his dabbling in philosophy Prof. Firestein discovered this and he
shares it with us and it was really a Tour de force chapter of writing where he
takes you along with his experience in high level research and exploration; to
think about what scientific reality is and about what our interpretation of
reality is, what our mindset does to our scientific understanding of nature. A
monistic scientific culture just doesn't ring true, given what we know now,
demonstrating the principle that Prof. Firestein had argued all along: that our
understand of the sciences are temporary, it lasts as long as the advent of the
next discovery. The pluralistic one is so much more complete.
The book itself is a short one; although it is dense with
ideas, ideas that we don't usually think about, ideas that we don't usually
want to talk about, ideas that challenges our very existence as researchers and
scientists. It is a fantastic read because it really does make you think about the
meaning of scientific work, it challenges the closely held believe that you
have regarding what you are doing. It is very healthy for people to read this; indeed,
I believe it should be required reading for anyone who wants to get into the
sciences, because it will change your viewpoint completely. I am reading this
as an engineer, I am not a scientist so
my work is somewhat different because of what my company wants me to work on
and what I need to do to get the desired results, which is not strictly the
pursuit of pure and unadulterated truth, but it does gives me food for thought
and it admonishes me to be honest and truthful when I am confronted with
failure, and I can look at failure without fear or shame.
