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Individual and Collective Accuracy

   Being a scientist, I am always in two-minds about my work. On one hand, given the current knowledge, I feel what I am doing is right. I take good care to have proper controls and etc etc when I do my work. So, it is most probably correct, as far as I know. But, since nobody knows everything, how sure can we really be about what we do ? And more importantly, how do we teach people to be incorrect in the 'correct' measure ?

   And this is where the concept of collective accuracy and Individual accuracy comes into the picture. What it means is, Science as a whole is correct, but each fact taken or each scientist's contribution taken individually is almost always slightly incorrect. I dont think I need to give examples, all the revisions that the theory of atomic structure has undergone over the decades is quite well known. I dont remember now if I ever said this in the blog, but "Science is an asymptote to Truth". There you go. Remember that and be happy. Dont break your head or pull your hair if all of your data is not consistent with any model under the sun. As long as you have done an honest days job and all the things you did are correctly and accurately documented, someone will find a better model to explain the data.

  Why am I rambling on about accuracy ? Well, I am working to prove a certain mechanism in protein kinases which for the sake of my career and for the sake of getting the paper published somewhere, I will not reveal. So, this mechanism is proving hard to prove. And I am not the only one who finds it hard to prove a mechanism. Numerous others have failed to prove enzyme mechanisms. Case in point is the Lysozyme mechanism. The first structure was solved by DC Phillips back in 1965 and looking at the structure, he came up with a carbenium ion mechanism for its action. Koshland and others said "Rubbish. Carbenium ions wont be stable enough, so it must undergo a covalently linked intermediate." Needless to say, Phillips was the bigger guy in the field, so lysozyme 'had' a carbenium ion mechanism until Phillips died in 1999. And in 2001, it was finally proven that it actually goes through a covalently linked intermediate (http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v412/n6849/full/412835a0.html). There are others, my favorite among them is Anfinsen's death, and the sudden acceptance in literature of co-translational folding. So, it seems like the quickest way to prove an enzyme mechanism is actually to go and kill the guy giving the opposite viewpoint. So, reviewer's of my paper, beware! I am hell bent on proving myself right!!!

  But, anyway, quite apart from the basic science involved, I feel the mechanism or component I am working with has great pharmaceutical potential. That in any case is the prime reason why I got excited about my work. But, there is tremendous pressure from all sides, and we are forever under the looming shadow of someone else 'scooping' us. I dont know how many of you feel this way, but some days I just feel, everything in my life is coming crashing down. And on some of these occasions, I do understand why it is so much easier to believe in a 'god' and just be stress free that everything is being taken care of. But, well, as I said in the beginning... Being a scientist, I am always in two minds... er sorry, was going into a loop there...

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