About the author

Dan Rhoads

Dan is a postdoc working at the University of Cyprus in developmental biology. He has a BSc in molecular biology and a PhD pharmacology and biochemistry.

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Science is an endlessly fascinating, challenging, and intellectually-satisfying endeavor. So it saddens me any time that I see someone mistakingly make claims about taking science on faith. This isn’t the forum for taking on religion – if you want that, more of my thoughts on that can be found at Migrations.

I have one request though, for us here at Bitesize Bio, and in particular, on our discussions of interesting and ground-breaking scientific studies:
Don’t take us on faith. Instead, ask questions. Scrutinize. Check out the data for yourself. Be skeptical. Be analytical. And reach your own conclusions. Catch me making a mistake, and demonstrate how a mistake was made.

That’s the start to being scientific. Open inquiry. Naturally, curiosity is necessary for any form of inquiry, so I’d like to encourage that as well.

Formulate your own hypotheses, and test them. Question all of your assumptions, figure out how to confirm or refute them, and improve your understanding of what you had previously assumed a priori.

Share your results. Verify a hypothesis? Falsify one? Let colleagues know what your results were, and how you reached them. Read up on the results and methods of your colleagues as well.

But whatever you do, don’t take anything on faith. Take it on evidence instead*. (and read Bitesize Bio to fuel your curiosity)

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