Science is a curious profession. It is relatively easy to get into, but much harder to be truly successful at. There are many different paths to success and just as many ways to fail. Many who have an interest in science in school never find their way into a science career. Many who do get an advanced degree in science are never able to get a grant or conduct a successful research program and may leave the field after a while. Some are tempted to cut corners and thus ruin their careers. Even those who have a science job may not be secure in their abilities or their productivity.

This book has four parts. In Chapter 1, science as a career is explored. What do scientists in different fields study? What skills are needed? How do scientists spend their time? How do you choose the right career path? Chapters 2 and 3 cover the ins and outs of creativity and problem solving, the central keys to success in research. Chapter 4 discusses the social dimension of being a scientist.

The most difficult part of a scientist's job is conducting research. Huge amounts of time are wasted in science experiments that fail, ideas that don't pan out, and papers that are never finished. Effort is wasted on proposals that don't get funded and projects whose results are never published. Even published studies are often flawed. Why?

Science is not merely conceptual, but instead involves active manipulation of the world to arrive at new knowledge. In this chapter, the implications of the ideas presented in the first chapters are explored. First, the process of developing and executing a scientific research program are explored, publishing papers is discussed, some ethical issues are touched on, and finally, the problem of interfacing science with the world of policy is addressed.

CONDUCTING A RESEARCH PROGRAM

Research that is random and aimless is unlikely to be very productive. In the age of naturalists, it was productive to collect specimens and observe animals in the wild because little or nothing was known. But today, any random observation is likely to be already known. Thus a key to success is to focus on a problem.

Earlier chapters discussed concepts that can help one to identify a problem worth working on. To review briefly: paradox can help one identify an opportunity; new tools and methods can open up topics to analysis; obtaining a larger data set or one at a larger scale than previous studies can lead to insights; and refining or testing a theory is always a productive avenue. Of course the idea of leverage as embodied in the Medawar zone can help one pick topics with a high payoff.

Given that a promising topic has been picked, the textbook view and the impression given to graduate students is that you should next design and conduct an experiment or study.

Science as a career is fascinating and fulfilling. The popular picture of what scientists do, however, does not provide a useful guide to those considering a science career. The first section of this book provided an overview of science as a profession and what scientists do. The central focus of the book, however, is on the inner game of science. How do scientists solve problems and discover new things? How can they increase productivity? What techniques can they use? To address this issue, a strategic problem solving approach is proposed.

Strategic thinking is an overall technology for problem solving with the potential for increasing both the quantity and quality of work in fields where creation of novel solutions is critical, such as design, invention, institutional innovation, research, software development, and engineering. It is based on an understanding of both outward processes (actions) and inner operations (cognition, attitudes). It takes particular care to be alert to the inherent flaws in all aspects of the problem solving process, and builds in checks and balances against these flaws.

There are four factors involved in the successful development of an innovative creation: creative mental functioning, an understanding of the discovery process, an appreciation of the structure of multistep problems, and the utilization of reality checks. Creative mental functioning is necessary to be able to recognize problems, overcome intimidation by the status quo, overcome barriers to thought, and avoid stagnation.

The second chapter of this book presented the techniques of strategic thinking in terms of the nature of problem solving, how discoveries are made and tested, how creativity can be harnessed and enhanced, and how attitude and style affect strategic problem solving effectiveness. This provides the foundation for actual strategic problem solving in terms of the mastery of one's cognitive tools and abilities. Such an understanding is essential to success, but there is more to it than this. There are characteristics of the problems themselves that one must also get a feel for before even the best strategist can be successful. To make an analogy, it is not sufficient for the sculptor to have an aesthetic vision, to know the symbolism he wishes to convey, and to have harnessed his mental faculties to the task, it is also essential that he understand the nature of his materials: the way that different woods respond to carving and polishing, the receptivity of these woods to stain, the susceptibility of different types of stone to cracking, and so on. That is, one must know something about the subject to be strategized about per se. This is usually considered domain-specific knowledge (of cars or diseases, of pizza or electronics) which of course is beyond the scope of this book because there are hundreds of domains and their intersections where people are faced with problems.

Science is about mathematics and rigor, but the human mind is sloppy and vague. We are prone to jumping to conclusions, prefer short chains of logic, are easily duped by optical illusions (even when told they are illusions beforehand), and are influenced by group think. This section is about the inner game of science, the mental world where discovery and proof take place. This is the terra incognita that few scientists have thought about, but about which they remain ignorant at their peril. A strategic approach to problem solving is presented and applied to help elucidate the solution to the paradox of how our illogical mind can ever produce reliable, logical results.

Because scientific discovery is inherently about open-ended, complex problems, it is not really possible to apply a cookbook approach (“the scientific method”). Rather, I suggest that a strategic approach to problem solving is a more effective approach. For those who are not born strategists, this involves tuning up one's thinking machinery specifically for this type of problem. Specifically, there are three steps to creating successful novel products. First, one must be capable of generating novel (but useful) ideas, of overcoming routine ways of functioning, and of putting together information in new ways. Without this capacity, one is limited to solving problems defined by others (the definition of a drone). Second, one must be able to use this creative capacity to discover/invent something new.