Do you know why scientists ROCK? It's coz we are GREAT at failing. Actually, we are EVEN BETTER at critical thinking that helps us pick ourselves up by the bootstraps after we've failed, and transform our failure into INNOVATIONS.
"I have not failed once. I've just found 10,000 ways that didn't work." --Thomas Edison
I absolutely hate quoting ol' Tommy Boy, coz he really gave Tesla (who is waaaay smarter and hotter) the shaft in the history books. But basically, he made ten-thousand lightbulbs before he found the one that actually worked. But, those "failures" lead to the final product--without the knowledge of why something DOESN'T work, it is difficult to figure out how something WILL.
I always thought it comical that "Failure is Not an Option" was uttered by someone at NASA. Are you ready to be skull-raped by some knowledge? NASA, back in the day, when soliciting applications for scientists, rejected those with histories full of pure success, and instead selected those who had a significant failure and bounced back from them [1].
One of the most significant failures we all learn in grade school science class is that of Alexander Flemming. While studying the bacteria Staphylococcus sp. in attempts to save soliders' lives, he set a couple of cultures he was growing on petri dishes off in a corner before leaving for a month vacay with his family (those Europeans sure have a nice work-life balance!). Low-and-behold, he returns to his lab to see some damn fuzzy stuff contaminating his agar. "Dude, I'm such a dumbass!," Flemming thinks to himself (I'm taking some creative liberties, ok). But instead of dumping the petri dishes in the sink for the lab assistant to take care of, he studies them a bit more closely. CRITICAL THINKING kicks in, and he realizes that the bacteria is staying away from the fuzz critters. Voila, Penicillin is "discovered."
Vulcanized rubber, Teflon, Post-it Notes and Velcro were all mistakes. Albert Einstein was labeled as "mentally challenged" as a child by one of his teachers, and thought to "never amount to anything."
To bring some marine biology into the mix (coz I'm a failed marine biologist, so I'm so honored to share this smartgasm space with one), Nobel Prize biologist, Osamu Shimomura, did throw his FAILED experiments into the sink. He was trying to figure out what proteins were involved in the bioluminescence of a species of jellyfish. The sink he threw his failed experiment into also contained seawater. When leaving the lab, Shimomura-Sensei (yeah, that's right, I know Japanese, too!) turned off the lights, and guess what was glowing in the sink??? That failure lead him to the discovery that calcium (in the salt water) was a key component of activation of the glow protein.
So, fellow sarcastic scientists (and those who want to date us smartass nerds, coz that is the only reason I agreed to this shit), I say EMBRACE FAILURE. Some British dude who has a "Sir" in his name said that if "you're not prepared to be wrong, you'll never come up with anything original." (Fine, its Sir Ken Robinson if you wanna Google stalk him).
[1] Dweck, Carol (2006) Mindset: The New Psychology of Success.
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