- You make the hypothesis,
- design the experiment to test the hypothesis,
- do the experiment,
- make observations,
- record them,
- evaluate your results
- and draw conclusions.
Oh yes. Then you write it up.
And if you’re DaVinci, father of experimental design, you write it on any scrap of paper handy, forward or backward, left-handed.
Well, I am no DaVinci, but I am extremely indebted to him for recording his experimentations. Because he has allowed even us average people to follow his process. That’s the thing about writing it down: it allows you to share it, verbatim, and these days with lots and lots of people at the click of a button.
I remember hating doing write ups in science lab when I was in school. There was so much detail to be attended to. You had to have just the right format, the right dependent and independent variables, the right units on your axes. For crying out loud, why not just tell people what you did? All they wanted to know was your conclusion, anyway. Right?
Wrong. Because it isn’t the work of science to conclude. It’s the work of science to discover. And then to test the discovery to see if it can be repeated, to determine if the conclusion is valid and then can be applied to the next inquiry. Science is just a process. Writing it up allows us to share it. Until it is written, it is incomplete.
That’s what my teachers’ grade book said and I still find it so today. Whatever discovering experience I have is incomplete until I write it up. Even the interesting ones that leave me scratching my head feel completed when I write them. Often, because doing so results in discovery. I wonder if I am just living my life according to scientific process.
I guess, in this light, it’s not that unusual that a scientist has become a writer. It just seems so much more valuable to share what we find rather than keep it to ourselves.
I read this morning,
We declare to you what we have seen and heard so that you also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.”
~ 1 John 1:3
Sounds a lot like scientific process. And then,
“We are writing these things so that our joy may be complete.” (1 John 1:4)
Aha! The Bible writers had to do write ups too! But for them it completed the joy. Maybe that’s why I feel the need to write. It just wraps things up. Then, of course, it makes the perfect Gift.