The two laws have a lot of consequences for designing and interpreting experiments. When designing experiments, assume that the experiment will not measure the thing you intend. Include lots of other measurements, to check as many other things as you can. If possible, use instruments which give a massive firehose of information, instruments which would let you notice a huge variety of things you might not have considered, like e.g. a microscope.
Great advice here. Right now, I’m validating a PCR protocol via agarose gel electrophoresis. Neither technique is new to me, but the equipment is, and I’m using borrowed DNA from one person and borrowed dye from another, using an agarose gel electrophoresis protocol that’s not written for the same dye.
At first, I was running gels to answer with just one DNA sample, basically getting one bit of information for the one question I had in mind.
I quickly realized that there were a ton of variables at play, with some unknown unknowns. Even though it took a little longer to add extra sample lanes to look at different questions, I could learn much more, much more quickly, by doing so. Even if it wasn’t obvious why I’d want that data, making sure I’d have access to it when the gel was finished an hour later proved useful again and again. It is good to over-observe your experiment as much as you can get away with.
Great advice here. Right now, I’m validating a PCR protocol via agarose gel electrophoresis. Neither technique is new to me, but the equipment is, and I’m using borrowed DNA from one person and borrowed dye from another, using an agarose gel electrophoresis protocol that’s not written for the same dye.
At first, I was running gels to answer with just one DNA sample, basically getting one bit of information for the one question I had in mind.
I quickly realized that there were a ton of variables at play, with some unknown unknowns. Even though it took a little longer to add extra sample lanes to look at different questions, I could learn much more, much more quickly, by doing so. Even if it wasn’t obvious why I’d want that data, making sure I’d have access to it when the gel was finished an hour later proved useful again and again. It is good to over-observe your experiment as much as you can get away with.