My Vision for the Origins and Astrobiology Research Laboratory at Purdue - Part II: The Scientific Philosophy/Approach

There are many different approaches to scientific inquiry and experimentation. None are right or wrong, but your philosophy towards science will ultimately guide your lab’s research path - so it’s worth taking time to think about it.

What are some different approaches?

• Lowest hanging fruit (my PhD advisor’s choice method)

  • What hasn’t been done with this software/instrument/data that would be quick and valuable to the field?

• Question-led

  • Start with a scientific question and learn the tools/obtain the skills necessary to answer it.

• Try anything and everything

  • Have no preference! Science is a playground, do whatever you feel like!

• Singular goal

  • Every bit of science you do contributes to finding a solution to a singular difficult scientific question.

• Most impactful ideas first

  • Discuss new project ideas constantly and do them in order of perceived impact.

• Fringe science

  • High risk, high reward! In most cases you’ll get null results, but a success could lead to a paradigm shift.

• Rebuttal science

  • See a flaw in an impactful paper? Do a contrasting study.

• Build on past work

  • Researching a question always leads to new questions.

• Collaboration-driven

  • Combine the strengths of two or more research groups on a project.

Research labs typically take multiple of the above approaches - but with different percentages.

The way I currently envision the Origins and Astrobiology Research Lab (OARL) is to focus mostly on question-led and collaboration-driven science with a priority on most impactful ideas first. Students and postdocs in my lab will typically start with a research question in the field of the origins of life and will design and run experiments and perform theoretical simulations to try to shed some light on their question. Given the interdisciplinarity of the field, we will always pool expertise, knowledge, and tools from other research groups, both at Purdue and other institutions, to try to build the most novel, comprehensive, and impactful studies.

But, what if a student or postdoc wants to take a different approach? Perhaps a fringe idea? Or a rebuttal study?

Good ideas are always worth exploring, and I think flexibility is important when working with others. I would rather empower my students and postdocs to pursue their own ideas than force them to spin their wheels with projects that don’t seem to be gaining traction. Given my expertise and experience, it’s my job as the PI to advise them and help them develop their ideas and find the novelty in them. I want to fan my students’ and postdocs’ flames - not extinguish them.

Lack of flexibility also makes you susceptible to scientific traps, such as spending a lifetime trying to prove a singular hypothesis that, in the end, may just be incorrect.

Some scientists who study the origins of life are guilty of this. And I think that it is a disservice to science to not be open to considering alternative hypotheses. After all, we have not solved the origin of life yet - everyones’ hypotheses have yet to be fully demonstrated!

It is possible that being rigid with your scientific explorations could lead you to the correct answer—if you are lucky enough to be exploring the right hypothesis. However, the cost of this rigid thinking tends to be a heck of a lot of scientific gatekeeping that drives away talented early career scientists trying to enter into the field.

In my lab, curiosity will be our main philosophy. We will be explorers and innovators. We will test hypotheses and present evidence for and against them in a balanced way. We will recognize that we cannot solve the origin of life on our own! Instead, we will try to be as useful to the field as possible by contributing valuable studies that lead us towards the answer.