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Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology 5, 577–581 (1 July 2004) | doi:10.1038/nrm1429

Excessive trust in authorities and its influence on experimental design

Tung-Tien Sun

Most graduate curricula in biological sciences offer courses that cover various scientific disciplines, but they give relatively little formal instruction in experimental design. Students learn the latter primarily through hands-on experience in the laboratory, and some find this learning process bewildering and frustrating. So, what is the root of the problem, and how can young researchers get experiments to work more predictably and reproducibly?