room to fail

"In a bid to encourage scientific risk-taking and to curb rampant misconduct, China is planning to legislate for failure, with a law that would allow Chinese scientists to report failures in their research without jeopardizing their chances of future funding."

I spotted the above quote in the news today.  It struck me that a scientist who cannot experiment without a fear of failure is a scientist who will not take great risks.  A scientist who won't act on instinct and try new methods or who can't be free to think with total creativity is crippled in his ability to discover and to push back frontiers of ignorance.  I don't have any statistics, but I think that the best scientists probably fail 99 times out of 100 attempts.  But with every failure lessons are learned and most discoveries happen in incremental steps rather than major breakthroughs.  Not only that...many unexpected discoveries have been made out of "failed" experiments.

Sir Alexander Fleming was known as a brilliant, but messy researcher.  He discovered penicillin accidentally in 1928 when he returned from vacation to find fungus growing on experiments he'd forgotten to discard.  On one experimental dish the fungus wasn't growing and that's where he found the penicillin.

Inspiration needs persistence to complete the work and faith to find results where others find failure.  In that process we find the adventure of our walk with the Lord.

Revelation 2:19 (The Message) "I see everything you're doing for me. Impressive! The love and the faith, the service and persistence. Yes, very impressive! You get better at it every day."

blessings,

Rob Smith

http://2daysthought.blogspot.com/