Yesterday, a neuroscience postdoc by the name of Leigh started a hashtag on twitter called #overlyhonestmethods. Then came the confessions.
Have you ever conducted scientific research? Are you familiar with the less-than-glamorous (and sometimes surprisingly slipshod) ways of the world's overworked, underpaid, and severely caffeinated scientists? Then #overlyhonestmethods is probably the funniest thing you'll read today.
Seriously. If you've ever wanted to laugh in amusement/sadness/resignation at something your non-sciencey friends & family will never understand, this is totally your huckleberry. Sort of like PostSecret meets whatshouldwecall[insert terminal degree here]. Just a handful of our recent favorites:
"We sampled opportunistically"=leaned over the side of the ship with a dipnet, pausing to curse my short arms & barf. #overlyhonestmethods
— Miriam Goldstein (@MiriamGoldste) January 8, 2013
we did experiment 2 because we didn't know what the fuck to make of experiment 1 #overlyhonestmethods
— dr leigh (@dr_leigh) January 7, 2013
We don't know how the results were obtained. The postdoc who did all the work has since left to start a bakery. #overlyhonestmethods
— Atif Kukaswadia (@MrEpid) January 8, 2013
Oh, you want an actual method you can follow? Pffft. Check the cover son, you're reading Nature. #overlyhonestmethods
— banmans (@banmans) January 8, 2013
Taq was incubated o/n at 20ºC because there were donuts in the break room & I forgot to put it back in the freezer. #overlyhonestmethods
— Karen James (@kejames) January 8, 2013
Two days to isolate the protein, five weeks to generate the hilarious double-entendre name for the gene.#overlyhonestmethods #flynerds
— Drug Monkey (@drugmonkeyblog) January 8, 2013
All experimenters — and authors — were blind to the study's hypotheses. #OverlyHonestMethods
— Kane_WMC_Lab (@Kane_WMC_Lab) January 8, 2013
rat sacrifices were performed to Tom Petty, because that's how we roll in this lab #toodark? #overlyhonestmethods
— Rebecca Weinberg (@sciliz) January 8, 2013
we discovered the anxiogenic properties of our new drug accidentally, while trying to fuck with labmate Steve's coffee #overlyhonestmethods
— Tal Yarkoni (@talyarkoni) January 8, 2013
@madukaogba This experiment only works if you use the TBAF that's been sitting in our cabinet for eight years #overlyhonestmethods #mythesis
— George Burgess (@Ixcila) January 8, 2013
@scitrigrrl @geeka "We did it this way out of adherence to folklore and superstition." #overlyhonestmethods
— Nancy Parmalee (@nparmalee) January 7, 2013
We repeated the experiment 5 times but never saw results this good before or since so we made a figure. #overlyhonestmethods
— Doctor_Strange (@StrangeSource) January 7, 2013
The first author didn't write this Methods section and doesn't understand half of it. #overlyhonestmethods
— Neuroskeptic (@Neuro_Skeptic) January 8, 2013
Though it all sounds tight now, we had no sweet fucking clue what we were doing when this started #overlyhonestmethods
— Proflikesubstance (@ProfLikeSubst) January 8, 2013
Our sampling locations happen to match tropical resort towns because field work doesn't have to be mud and agony.#overlyhonestmethods
— Alex Wild (@Myrmecos) January 8, 2013
This dye was selected because the bottle was within reach #overlyhonestmethods
— Emma (@atomselectrons) January 7, 2013
We wanted to see what would happen if we did X, just for fun. Great explosion! We came up with the hypothesis later. #overlyhonestmethods
— Bora Zivkovic (@BoraZ) January 8, 2013
we didn't read half of the papers we cite because they are behind a paywall #overlyhonestmethods #OA
— Sylvain Deville (@devillesylvain) January 8, 2013
Tons more on Twitter. Some other curated tweets available here.