Introducing the "How It Really Happened" Series

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Through selective hindsight and carefully edited reconstruction, the scientific paper presents itself as an immaculate conception, without iniquity or ignoble thought, and free of prodigal acts. Every investigator, however, recognizes that the process of research involves a long list of wrong ideas, misfires, mistakes, and blind alleys. We would all like to pretend that our paper is the final product of logical hypotheticodeductive thinking. But intuition, good fortune, and serendipity play a larger part than is apparent in the finished article. Also missing in the published product is the human dimension to discovery: the passion, excitement, conflict and competition. In an entertaining essay (1), Peter Medawar (1915-1987), winner of a Nobel Prize in 1960, posed the question "Is the scientific paper a fraud?" Medawar went on to answer the question, saying yes, it "is a fraud in the sense that it does give a totally misleading narrative of the processes of thought that go into the making of scientific discoveries."

The canons of scientific writing demand a unique style, eliminating any mention of self. Authors usually select abstract nouns as the subject of sentences, avoiding personal pronouns (2). To further depersonalize the account, the author chooses the passive rather than active voice of verbs, writing "An esophageal balloon catheter was inserted," rather than "I inserted an esophageal balloon catheter." Through this tactic, authors try to make their accounts sound objectivejudgements appear subjective as soon as a person is mentioned. Authors are also masking their involvement in the research process; it is as if the experiments took place on their own with the author a disinterested bystander. This disinterestedness the pursuit of ideas for the enrichment of knowledge and not personal gainis one of the cardinal norms of the scientific ethos (3). Although research is necessarily creative in origin, investigators believe that the truth they are seeking exists on its own, out there, hidden only by their misguided approach to itwaiting to be discovered rather than created. The intellectual passion, excitement, and pleasure present at the moment of illumination is also toned down in the final publication. When affirming a statement in a scientific article, authors prefer an expression of the type "the decrease in electromyographic activity may signify reduced respiratory drive" over "I believe that the decrease in electromyographic activity indicates reduced respiratory drive," because the latter connotates a religious belief or heuristic conviction. Of course, the only difference between the latter confident declaration and the former agnostic remark is in the personal coefficientthe author's commitment and expectation of tacit assent from the reader (4). The unemotive and impersonal literary style creates a general tone of timidity, modesty, and disinterestedness, which authors hope will enhance the acceptability of their utterances.

In this issue of AJRCCM we launch a new series, entitled "How it really happened." The authors of these essays have been invited to select one of their publications to serve as a springboard for a more personal account of the process of scientific discovery.* They have been asked to concentrate on the process of scientific discovery rather than scientific content, the usual focus of an original paper. "The creative process is an opaque mix," Edward Wilson has recently written (5), and "perhaps only openly confessional memoirs, still rare to nonexistent, might disclose how scientists actually find their way to a publishable conclusion." Wilson continues that the "voluminous and incomprehensible chaff, soon to be forgotten, contains most of the secrets of scientific success." I am hopeful that some of these secrets will be revealed as contributors to the "How it really happened" series give us a behind-the-scenes account of how their springboard paper was born. An expository and discursive format will allow authors to expound on and amplify the process of scientific discovery, shedding light on the thought processes of investigators. When delivering his Nobel Lecture in 1966, Richard Feynman (1918-1988) said that "there isn't any place to publish, in a dignified manner, what you actually did in order to do the work." I am hoping that these essays will go a little way to address this complaint. I also hope that you, our readers, find each essay a relatively distinctive piece of literatureunique to each contributor as a scientist, as a writer, and as a person. The essays may also give future generations an insight into the blossoming of pulmonary and critical care science in the latter half of the twentieth century, otherwise to be lost in oral tradition.

In any human endeavor, vitality and progress are critically dependent on the infusion of new blood. The somewhat staid accounts of research in a scientific paper give the reader little clue of how the work really came to pass. Aspiring acolytes ascribe exceptional qualities to the investigators, assume they were born with incredible intellects, and gifted with inspirational leaps of imagination and flashes of insight that few mortals are granted. Such assumptions can have an inhibitory effect, especially for novices encountering one obstacle after another on their first exposure to research, causing them to despair at what they perceive as personal ineptitude and unsuitability to the enterprise. They have yet to learn that research is ninety-nine percent frustration and perspiration balanced by one percent inspiration and elation. I am hoping that these essays will prove inspirational to younger and also older readers.

MARTIN J. TOBIN

Editor

	Footnotes

	References

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1. Medawar, P. B. 1991. "Is the scientific paper a fraud?" In Medawar P. B. The Threat and the Glory: Reflections on Science and Scientists. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 228-233 (Based on a BBC interview published in The Listener, Sept. 12, 1963).

2. Zinman, J. M. 1968. Public Knowledge: An Essay concerning the Social Dimension of Science. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. 34.

3. Merton, R. K.. 1942. Science and technology in a democratic order. J. Legal & Political Sociology 1: 115-126 .

4. Polanyi, M. 1958. Personal Knowledge: Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy. Routledge and Kegan Paul, London. 305.

5. Wilson, E. O. 1999. Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge. Vintage Books, New York. 70.