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MURPHY'S LAWS
and Others Reasons Things Go Wrong
Page 6
RESEARCHMANSHIP
If you find errors on these pages... it's to be expected
Gordon's First Law:
If a research project is not worth doing at all, it is not worth doing well.
Murphy's Law of Research:
Enough research will tend to support your theory.
Mair's Law:
If the facts do not conform to the theory, they must be disposed of.
Corollaries:
1. The bigger the theory, the better.
2. The experiment may be considered a success if no more than 50% of the observed measurements must be discarded to obtain a correspondence with the theory.
Williams and Holland's Law:
If enough data is collected, anything may be proven by statistical methods.
Edinton's Theory:
The number of different hypotheses erected to explain a given biological phenomenon is inversely proportional to the available knowledge.
Peers's Law:
The solution to a problem changes the nature of the problem.
Harvard Law:
Under the most rigorously controlled conditions of pressure, temperature, volume, humidity, and other variables, the organism will do as it damn well pleases.
Fourth Law of Revision:
After painstaking and careful analysis of a: sample, you are always told that it is the wrong sample and doesn't apply to the problem.
Hersh's Law:
Biochemistry expands to fill the space and time available for its completion and publication.
Rule of Accuracy:
When working toward the solution of a problem, it always helps if you know the answer.
Young's Law:
All great discoveries are made by mistake.
Corollary:
The greater the funding, the longer it takes to make the mistake.
Whole Picture Picture:
Research scientists are so wrapped up in their own narrow endeavors that they cannot possibly see the whole picture of anything, including their own research.
Corollary:
The Director of Research should know as little as possible about the specific subject of research he is administering.
Brooke's Law:
Whenever a system becomes completely defined, someone discovers something which either abolishes the system or expands it beyond recognition.
Campbell's Law:
Nature abhors a vacuous experimenter.
Meskimen's Law:
There's never time to do it right, but there's always time to do it over.
As the laws are presented on my weekly e-mail list I will add them here. Come back each week or see them first by sending an e-mail to murphy-subscribe@topica.com
If you have other Murphy type "Laws"to add please E mail me
