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Oh man, in my experience the problem was exactly the opposite. I would talk to biologists who would propose an utterly insane mechanism or demand a molecule wi

Oh man, in my experience the problem was exactly the opposite. I would talk to biologists who would propose an utterly insane mechanism or demand a molecule with impossible properties for their analytical purposes (hey chemist can you make a thing that does exactly this under these constraints for me). Or once there was a physicist doing biophysics that spent weeks obsessing over an interesting discovery he's made using AFM, that ordered structures appeared when he had prepped it slowly, disordered structures when he prepped it quickly. I told him he'd forgotten to get rid of the bulk salt from the sample. It was constantly a problem that interdisciplinary research was encouraged but interdisciplinary knowledge was not (because that is hard)

majos 8y ago
That's certainly a problem, too. I'm suggesting that it's useful to really kindle an interest before starting in on the harder parts of studying it, not that the harder parts should be put off indefinitely. In particular, learning the hard parts early may make a person dislike them more than they should, e.g. biologist's might see p-values as some annoying hurdle to clear rather than a useful tool for finding real conclusions.
lifeisstillgood 8y ago
But that happens in every discipline by every level of experience. I would put good money down that you yourself spent hours wondering why the hell you got different results until you were in the shower and realised "Oh the salts!!" Yes he made a newbie mistake - but then again 4 developers at my work yesterday with something like 80 years experience spent hours not noticing a duplicated line I only hope you pointed out his mistake gently. If not maybe offer a beginners course :-)