Was zur Hölle, Wissenschaft? – #overlyhonestmethods

Wissenschaftler beanspruchen Wissenschaftlichkeit, berufen sich auf Objektivität. Doch weil Wissenschaft hart ist, verbergen sich hinter dem hochkomplexen methodischen Räderwerk und den pedantischen Protokollen mitunter dunkle Geheimnisse.

Wo Forschung passiert, da wird nicht nur in Theorien gemeuchelt, auch der tragenden Säule der wissenschaftlichen Erkenntnis, dem Experiment, geht es an den Kragen. Und so resultieren aus intellektuellen Unzulänglichkeiten, persönlichen Marotten und ideologischem Blackboxing Facepalm-Methodik und Approximationserkenntnis.

Was im Forschungsalltag bagatellisiert, ex-post-rationalisiert oder gar geleugnet wird, dass sammeln Twitter-versierte Wissenschaftler seit 2013 – nicht ganz ernstgemeint – unter dem Hashtag #overlyhonestmethods. Kriegsberichte von der Forschungsfront sozusagen, die man so in keinem Forschungsbericht findet.

Hier unsere Top 10+ Lieblings-Fremdscham-Tweets:

Samples were prepared by our collaborators at MIT. We assumed no contamination because, well… they're MIT #overlyhonestmethods

— Dr Paul Coxon (@paulcoxon) 8. Januar 2013

The dose was so crazy high because got ng and mg mixed up in calculations #overlyhonestmethods

— Steven Roberts (@sr320) 8. Januar 2013

We incubated this for however long lunch was. #overlyhonestmethods

— Graham Casserole (@GrahamCasserole) 7. Januar 2013

We used jargon instead of plain English to prove that a decade of grad school and postdoc made us smart. #overlyhonestmethods

— Ethan O. Perlstein (@eperlste) 8. Januar 2013

A very simple statistical method was applied because the student knows nothing about statistics. Nothing at all. #overlyhonestmethods

— Savasana (@Luisacom_S) 29. Februar 2016

We didn't understand the physics behind this so we claimed it was beyond the scope of this report. #overlyhonestmethods

— Jon Williams (@JonBarryWill) 8. Januar 2013

1.124 grams of material was used because thats all there was in the pot and Sigma were out of stock. #overlyhonestmethods

— Mark Lorch (@Sci_ents) 8. Januar 2013

We used this magnification microscope image to crop out the weird bits of the sample we don't want to address. #overlyhonestmethods

— Postdoc Problems (@postdocproblems) 8. Januar 2013

We used a modified version of Dr. IDidItFirst's apparatus, as we couldn't figure out how to build an exact replica. #overlyhonestmethods

— Beekeeper Eric (@BeekeeperEric) 8. Januar 2013

We have not given you a reference for this bit of information because it is a paper of one of our arch rivals. #overlyhonestmethods

— Akshat Rathi (@AkshatRathi) 8. Januar 2013

The data is old because in between writing the first draft and doing the revisions I had a baby #overlyhonestmethods

— Heather Piwowar (@researchremix) 8. Januar 2013

Barbados was selected as a case study because the authors had a naive hope that it might justify some fieldwork there. #overlyhonestmethods

— Marek Kubik (@mlkubik) 8. Januar 2013

#overlyhonestmethods I did it this way because it was the first thing that got me a result and now my funding has run out ….

— Andrew Holding (@AndrewHolding) 8. Januar 2013

We included 21 shoulders because we couldn't convince any more people to lay in the loud-magnet-tube on a Saturday. #overlyhonestmethods

— Carly (@carlylockard) 4. März 2016