I was reading this very interesting story in the book “Why Zebras Don’t Have Ulcers” by Robert Sapolsky.
Two scientists, Roger Guillemin and Andrew Schally, were looking for a hormone that the brain produces that would give insight on the functionality of the pituitary glands, but the two scientists disliked each other so much that on one fateful night, they broke up and went separate ways. They were doing the same research, but in fierce competition with each other.
“Schally and crew were the first to submit a paper for publication saying, in effect, “There really does exist a hormone in the brain that regulates thyroid hormone release, and its chemical structure is X.” In a photo finish, Guillemin’s team submitted a paper reaching the identical conclusion five weeks later. One might wonder why something obvious wasn’t done a few years into this insane competition, like the National Institutes of Health sitting the two down and saying, “Instead of us giving you all of this extra taxpayers’ money to work separately, why don’t you two work together?” Surprisingly, this wouldn’t necessarily be all that great for scientific progress. The competition served an important purpose. Independent replication of results is essential in science. Years into a chase, a scientist triumphs and publishes the structure of a new hormone or brain chemical. Two weeks later the other guy comes forward. He has every incentive on earth to prove that the first guy was wrong. Instead, he is forced to say, ‘I hate that son of a bitch, but I have to admit he’s right. We get the identical structure.’ That is how you know that your evidence is really solid, from independent confirmation by a hostile competitor. When everyone works together, things usually do go faster, but everyone winds up sharing the same assumptions, leaving them vulnerable to small, unexamined mistakes that can grow into big ones. ” — pg 26-27 Read More
