Gold standard science requires gold standard scholarship
2025-09-18
Scientists often casually refer to research and “library work” as separate endeavors. Research involves the execution of experiments in the laboratory whereas library work means finding references to relevant studies in the literature and analyzing them—often as a precursor to writing a paper. Treating careful scholarship as somehow less important than the acquisition of data can adversely affect the reliability of the scientific record and consequently, the course of science. In today’s tense environment around science and politics, meticulous scholarship has never been more important.