Huh? It's the norm to hold back in meeting abstracts, as they have to be submitted and oftenOriginally Posted by jvkohl
are available to your peers (i.e., competitors) long before the meeting occurs. You don't want be scooped, because
a presentation at a meeting doesn't trump a manuscript. Credit goes to those with manuscripts, not
abstracts.
I have to say, from my perspective as a practicing scientist (we had a mutual friend in the late
Bob Moss), that you're coming off as more of a dogmatist than a scientist.
NowOriginally Posted by DrSmellThis
this is a much more scientific attitude, reminiscent of this lesson:
It is interesting, therefore, to
bring it out now and speak of it explicitly. It's a kind of scientific integrity, a principle of scientific thought
that corresponds to a kind of utter honesty--a kind of leaning over backwards. For example, if you're doing an
experiment, you should report everything that you think might make it invalid--not only what you think is right
about it: other causes that could possibly explain your results; and things you thought of that you've eliminated
by some other experiment, and how they worked--to make sure the other fellow can tell they have been eliminated.
Details that could throw doubt on your interpretation must be given, if you know them. You must do the best you
can--if you know anything at all wrong, or possibly wrong--to explain it. If you make a theory, for example, and
advertise it, or put it out, then you must also put down all the facts that disagree with it, as well as those that
agree with it. There is also a more subtle problem. When you have put a lot of ideas together to make an elaborate
theory, you want to make sure, when explaining what it fits, that those things it fits are not just the things that
gave you the idea for the theory; but that the finished theory makes something else come out right, in addition.
In summary, the idea is to try to give all of the information to help others to judge the value of your
contribution; not just the information that leads to judgment in one particular direction or another.
-Richard Feynman
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