There's a bit of a theme when it comes to Stuart Firestein’s books, with titles like “Failure: Why Science Is So Successful,” and “Ignorance: How It Drives Science.”

Stuart Firestein is Professor of Biological Sciences at Columbia University where he and his colleagues study the vertebrate olfactory system. He says his lab is dedicated to answering that fundamental human question: How do I smell?

In this episode, Stuart tells us about his lab, what it means to succeed in science, failure vs. error, and if there is a science of serendipity.

Episode Quotes:

On teaching science

When I go to a conference or a meeting, fellow scientists, we don't talk about what we know, we talk about what we don't know, what we'd like to know. And so I thought, well, maybe that's what we should start teaching these kids a little bit of the, what we don't know, because that's really where, the cool science is. That's really where science happens.

Failure is interesting

I like to see experiments succeed now and again, but they're often more interesting when they don't quite succeed the way you think they would.

On experiments & failure

An experiment that's not replicated is often conflated with fraud, and those are two different things.

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His Work:

Science is Littered With Failure feat. Stuart Firestein

unSILOed with Greg LaBlanc