Training Your Autopilot: When in Doubt, Throw it Out

If Ron Popeil (of “Set it and Forget it” fame) had been a scientist, he probably would have been preaching this years ago.  Ron knows that in order for something to stick in our heads, it has to be easy to remember.  Training your autopilot is a saying that while easy to remember, can be difficult to execute…

Being a great scientist is as much about our hands as it is our brains.  As we’ve discussed in previous installments of Training Your Autopilot (Mastering Mindless Tasks and Assay Pipetting), creating a standard set of operating procedures that we use in every experiment will make us a much more efficient, consistent scientist.

As we discussed in Know When to Fold ‘em, being a great scientist also takes tremendous self control.  Developing the ability to step back and objectively analyze the situation can be challenging, but it’s essential for success.

Doubt, The Experiment Destroyer.

Perhaps the most important attribute of a successful experiment is confidence.  Confidence that the reagents were prepared properly.  Confidence that the instrument was functioning correctly.  Confidence that the samples were not accidentally swapped.

A shadow of doubt at any stage can be the death knell of an experiment.  If something happens that shakes our confidence, we need to either repeat that step, or throw out the experiment.  This may seem easy on paper, but in the lab this can range from trivial to terrifying.

Working in the hood and the serological pipet bumps against the outside of the media bottle?  Pitch it.  Can’t remember which primary antibody you added to which dish?  Chuck it.

But isn’t that wasteful?

Well, yes.  But consider the alternative.  If the cells get infected, or the western doesn’t work, a 74 cent pipet or a five dollar antibody aliquot will be the least of our worries.  We’ll end up wasting far more time, money and reagents just getting back to square one.  Consider the price of confidence.

However, it’s not always an easy choice.  What if our boss and collaborators are both anxiously waiting on the result of an experiment four weeks in the making?  But half-way through, there’s a chance that two key samples were accidentally swapped – confidence is lost.  This is where we need to step back and be a scientist – if we carry through, how confident are we in the result?  We must have the self-control and discipline to pull the plug on something, no matter how big, if we can’t be confident in the final result.

We can certainly imagine situations that may be worth continuing in the face of doubt, particularly if there is a downstream analysis that could verify the result (eg, DNA sequencing, NMR, etc.).  However, a great scientist should be able to stand confidently by their results at every step or take responsibility for their mistakes.  Establishing a standardized set of guidelines we strictly adhere to when performing research will ensure we spend most of our time on the former.

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Check out the other articles in this series:

Assay Pipetting

Mastering Mindless Tasks

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Ever had to make the call in the middle of a big experiment?