How to develop critical scientific thinking? - another dilemma.... (Jun/08/2007 )

I am at the very beginning of my second year of PhD studies and I have to say that I still don't have the critical scientific view of things. I get easily ashamed if I overlooked something when my supervisor points it out, especially if its something obvious. I know, I know, I will learn, but I was wondering if this way of thinking can be developed by reading scientific papers? Will I eventually start asking the right questions?

What are your views on this and how did it work for you?

Read long papers in good journals (i.e. Cell article, not a Science brevia) and ask yourself why they did this experiment and that, why did they use this as control. Always look up the supplementary data, although that is boring, that is where you will find such information.

Read papers in low impact journals and try to figure out why it is there. What experiments and controls are missing, where the conclusions don't follow the results. Remember, a paper is published in 'FEBS Letters' for a reason. Easy and entertaining thing for all humans to do is to try to find fault. So, use this activity as if you were playing a game online searching for patterns or objects in a big mess screen.

Read a protocol and take it apart line by line, sodium deoxycholate? why? Google it. Look up the index page of Sambrook/Maniatis and find out what is its activity. Why treat embryos with H2O2? Why paraformaldehyde and not formaldehyde or gluteraldehyde? Why not methanol if you are looking at cytoskeleton? Why not boil the extract if you are trying to detect membrane protein on western?

If you ask such questions and find out answers, the activity is fun, but the bigger fun is to be able to tell the real logic behind everything to other grads and under-grads. And once you are in that position, you will like doing science better, you can counter your PI better, and your experiments will surely improve.

Read long papers in good journals (i.e. Cell article, not a Science brevia) and ask yourself why they did this experiment and that, why did they use this as control. Always look up the supplementary data, although that is boring, that is where you will find such information.

Read papers in low impact journals and try to figure out why it is there. What experiments and controls are missing, where the conclusions don't follow the results. Remember, a paper is published in 'FEBS Letters' for a reason. Easy and entertaining thing for all humans to do is to try to find fault. So, use this activity as if you were playing a game online searching for patterns or objects in a big mess screen.

Read a protocol and take it apart line by line, sodium deoxycholate? why? Google it. Look up the index page of Sambrook/Maniatis and find out what is its activity. Why treat embryos with H2O2? Why paraformaldehyde and not formaldehyde or gluteraldehyde? Why not methanol if you are looking at cytoskeleton? Why not boil the extract if you are trying to detect membrane protein on western?

If you ask such questions and find out answers, the activity is fun, but the bigger fun is to be able to tell the real logic behind everything to other grads and under-grads. And once you are in that position, you will like doing science better, you can counter your PI better, and your experiments will surely improve.