At some point in my last entry I talked about my frustration
with technology. It seems as though the technological malfunctioning has
passed and I can go back to doing experiments and trusting my data. I have
officially been working and collecting data for the past 4 months. I have tons
of numbers that we call “data.” But they are just numbers! We put the animal in
a tube, run it through a machine and the machine spits out numbers. Sometimes,
I collect blood samples measure it with a Glucometer and I get numbers. I
collect RNA run it through qPCR and I get numbers. Numbers, numbers, numbers!!
Everywhere there are numbers! At some point, you must ask yourself… what do
these numbers mean?
The process of sorting data is very tedious. It takes time,
patience and perfection! Once you have these numbers sorted in an “organized”
fashion, the next process is to UNDERSTAND what these numbers mean. In the
understanding part of the data, numbers get “thrown out.” These numbers that
magically disappear some how ends up supporting our hypothesis. Which at this
point is a great feeling!
4 months of hard work, and I can be proud to say that I have
some meaningful data. But the playing around with numbers, disappearance of
numbers… what scientists like to call data manipulation is an interesting
concept. We use statistical outliers and various statistical tests to determine
if the data is viable. It’s something I have to get used to.
Today at work, another scientist who is retiring soon told
me, “you must squeeze the data out from the numbers.” The question is, at what point
do you stop manipulating your data? When are you just playing with the data so
that it can support your theory? And this manipulation, is it natural (in the
sense that would this manipulation occur in the natural way of life)?
Til then… I will continue to “squeeze the data out from my
numbers.”
~Cell-ebraTez
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