Starting Over...

A little peace of mind...

I know it's silly but I just spent the day pouring through my old lab partner's notes for the part of the study we worked on together. Her observations and mine BOTH contributed to the result that Dr. S claimed to be impossible. I admit there was a small part of me that wondered if I had been biased in reporting my results and came up with false data. It would have been unintentional, but still.

For the about half the subjects I did know what the treatments were, but recorded my observations, no more, no less. Wishful thinking can Fuck you, but what the Hell to do I, a technician with no desire to move up in the field, care if a test drug makes our animals horny or hungry?

The fact that my partner and I contributed equally to at least one of the controversial results puts my mind at ease. I'm still fired, of course. The paper's still destroyed and months of hard work are down the drain. Dr. S may even think my results are biased, but there is too much evidence to the contrary for her to make a formal accusation. A concern because it would be a tenured professor's word against mine. Even if she's wrong, it's very David and Goliath. Instead, she's just making me letting me walk away, with the assurance that I'm a blight on the research community. I guess there's a silver lining to this after all.

And I've learned a very important lesson: Even an honest, unmotivated scientist should always do experiments blind.