The promise and burden of research

The process of discovering, envisioning new ideas and creating has always excited me. It’s what attracted me to a research career in agriculture, where I learned the trade from the ground up. New products and new ideas are also increasingly what drive our economy and business.

But there’s a catch. If you are to seek all the personal satisfaction and economic good that can come from new ideas, you must also be willing to accept the responsibilities and the process of what research is all about.

One of my early lessons on the “scientific method” was to accept, and understand, rejection. I’d dreamt up the idea, done the research, worked through the statistics, proven the concept, written the paper and submitted it to a prominent journal—only to be shocked by the criticism of blind reviewers and, ultimately, by rejection. How could they reject this earth-shattering discovery? After considerable soul-searching, I learned that it was not the reviewer’s responsibility to believe my findings; the burden of proof rested with me as the innovator. I had neither designed the experiments nor written the paper to be convincing enough to change the journal’s mind about what was conventional wisdom.

We see the same process play out daily on the Web, in our newspapers and on television. Is global warming the threat, and is human activity the direct cause that it appears to be? Are genetically modified (specifically, transgenic) organisms threatening our environment and health? And perhaps more loaded, due to moral and religious values: Does embryonic stem cell research create or destroy life?

The same rules that apply to the researcher also apply to the research university, the research university’s community and all innovators. Yet the burden of proof still lies with the inventor of the new idea. There is no obligation for others to believe.

When I toil in research, the standard-held belief in my field requires statistics verifying that you are at least 95 percent confident that your hypothesis is true. I was thinking about that threshold on election night, when, in Missouri, 55 percent could be considered a landslide. In the arena of public opinion and support, being convincing is a daunting challenge. It takes unusual leadership to be an innovator in a public institution.

As a public university, the University of Missouri must continually renew our commitment to be not only a leader but also a responsible innovator in dealing with our peers, our elected officials and our state. To assume that others have an obligation to believe us leads to the contempt that some have for higher education. Claiming rights, sovereignty or independence from public concern only earns us a bad reputation. But to be a responsible innovator, to break new ground, to garner open support for transforming ideas—this work holds great excitement and great promise for us as a community, a university and a state.

Become engaged with the university. Expose yourself to new ideas among the visitors at our public lectures. Participate in the Saturday Morning Science sessions at the Life Sciences Center and see firsthand the research being conducted in our labs. Great research delivers on its promise only when its value is thoroughly understood and its benefits are broadly used.
Being a great research university also means being a benevolent and gracious leader of public opinion, literacy and engagement.