Time to Think

Abstract

Acouple of months have now passed since the death of Francis Crick, who with James Watson was responsible for the discovery of the structure of DNA in the early 1950s. Francis Crick was one of the most influential biologists of the twentieth century. His work with James Watson laid the foundations for modern medicine and genetics. What is notable, however, is that Crick was more of a theoretician than an experimentalist. His discovery was largely based on the experimental work of others, including Maurice Wilkins, Rosalind Franklin, and E. Chargaff. These were all familiar names to me as a young scientist in the 1960s. Although some of our younger researchers now may not recognize these names, they will certainly appreciate the legacy they have bestowed upon us. I wonder, though, whether such insight into biological systems could emerge so readily in the research environment in which we find ourselves today? The foundations laid by Watson and Crick have paved the way for significant advances, such as the Human Genome Project, and a technological explosion in the area of molecular biology. High-throughput techniques, such as gene microarrays, now allow for the screening and analysis of the expression of tens of thousands of genes from microgram quantities of nucleic acid in days. This in itself provides us with significant new challenges in bioinformatics. However, the capacity to generate huge amounts of data sometimes diverts us from our primary goal of thinking about what it all means. Collection of data alone has limited value unless it is harnessed to provide the explanation for hypothesisdriven research. Descriptive and observational research adds to our bank of knowledge, but it provides understanding only when used to explain the mechanistic basis of processes. The pursuit of hypothesis-driven research is a rewarding exercise, but to achieve this requires time to think. Many of those in the research community are based in academic institutions, and the pressures on these researchers from a variety of sources can limit their opportunities for time to think and encourage the treadmill of the publication factory. How many times have we been to a conference and come back

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 61 citations exist upstream.