{"id":85622,"date":"2017-01-18T18:47:52","date_gmt":"2017-01-18T16:47:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/when-it-comes-to-big-finds-scientists-need-more-than-just-luck-and-chance-the-conversation\/"},"modified":"2017-01-18T18:47:52","modified_gmt":"2017-01-18T16:47:52","slug":"when-it-comes-to-big-finds-scientists-need-more-than-just-luck-and-chance-the-conversation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/when-it-comes-to-big-finds-scientists-need-more-than-just-luck-and-chance-the-conversation\/","title":{"rendered":"When it comes to big finds, scientists need more than just luck and chance | The Conversation"},"content":{"rendered":"

When it comes to big finds, scientists need more than just luck and chance<\/a>: <\/p>\n

The author's backpack was hiding this almost complete therapsid fossil. Was finding it all down to luck?<\/span> Julien Benoit<\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The history of science abounds with stories about discoveries made by chance. One of the most famous cases, involves French physicist Antoine Henri Becquerel, who accidentally discovered radioactivity by leaving a piece of granite on photographic paper in a drawer of his desk. Another, is the story of Scottish biologist Alexander Fleming, who forgot his bacterial cultures at home when he went on holiday. They rotted \u2013 and Fleming discovered penicillin.<\/p>\n

These charming stories showcase science\u2019s most human aspect: men and women who make lucky mistakes that can save lives or change the world. Even scientists are happy to believe these tales, though they don\u2019t do much justice to our colleagues\u2019 expertise. <\/p>\n

But is this really the way science works? Can anybody, scientist or not, rely on luck to make important discoveries? My own \u201clucky strike\u201d as a palaeontologist \u2013 finding a nearly complete fossil of a pre-mammalian ancestor \u2013 helped me to understand that good science isn\u2019t rooted in chance. It\u2019s based on people with expertise being in the right place at the right time, equipped with enough knowledge to know what they\u2019re looking at. <\/p>\n

A fossil find<\/h2>\n

My moment of \u201cluck\u201d occurred in South Africa\u2019s Karoo in 2015. I\u2019d been invited to join an international team of palaeontologists led by Professor Bruce Rubidge and Dr Michael Day from the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. We came from Europe, South America and Africa to look for the fossils of pre-mammalian therapsids, which date back around 260 million years.<\/p>\n

The Karoo is a semi-arid desert mostly populated by sheep and thorny bushes that covers a huge swathe of South Africa between Johannesburg and Cape Town. Hundreds of millions of years ago it was covered with lakes, rivers, dense primeval vegetation. Large reptile-like beasts roamed this landscape.<\/p>\n

On the day in question we were fossil hunting between the towns of Sutherland and Fraserburg. There were rich pickings: Bruce and Michael had identified an area filled with fossil remains. So, we were in the right place. And, crucially, my shoes were totally wrong for the Karoo. Between the thorns and the heat, the plastic of my shoes had melted and their toes had been ripped open by thorns.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Alexander Fleming.<\/span> Shutterstock<\/span><\/span> <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

So I sat down on an outcrop of sandstone that formed a natural bench, putting my backpack down next to me. A brief burst of rain brought a bunch of critters out from their hiding places to drink; an astonishing spectacle. When the sun returned, I felt ready to carry on. I picked up my backpack \u2013 and saw the beautiful, nearly complete fossilised therapsid skeleton it had been covering.<\/p>\n

It was 30cm long and in great condition, and it has been right next to me, under my backpack all the time ! I couldn\u2019t contain my enthusiasm, exclaiming, \u201cHow lucky am I?\u201d. And that\u2019s when I started thinking about \u201cluck\u201d in the context of scientific discovery. Was I that lucky after all?<\/p>\n

Serendipity and science<\/h2>\n

Bruce and Michael, two experts in their field, had chosen our prospecting spot carefully based on what they knew. They had sent out a complete team of palaeontologists who knew what to look for. This doesn\u2019t look like luck to me: it was probability in action. <\/p>\n

This is the very essence of what we call serendipity: the art of creating the good intellectual, scientific and experimental context for a \u201cfortuitous\u201d discovery to happen. Fleming may well have discovered penicillin by chance, but the conditions were right because he had all the equipment and specimens he needed.<\/p>\n

Becquerel would never have realised what he\u2019d found if he hadn\u2019t been carefully studying natural fluorescence. His existing knowledge allowed him to recognise a major discovery.<\/p>\n

Maybe I discovered this skeleton by chance \u2013 or perhaps I found it because that was what we were looking for, in the right place and with the right people.<\/p>\n

My humble fossil was certainly far from the level of Fleming and Becquerel\u2019s discoveries. But it offered a valuable reminder that pure luck can\u2019t account for scientific breakthroughs. Hours of work, and countless people and money are invested to create the right opportunity for discoveries to happen. Serendipity happens when scientists create their own luck.<\/p>\n

\"The <\/p>\n

Julien Benoit receives funding from PAST and its scatterlings projects; the NRF; and the DST-NRF Centre of Excellence in Palaeosciences (CoE in Palaeosciences).<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Source:<\/strong> The Conversation \u2013 Articles (AFRICA)<\/a><\/small>
\n<\/p>\n

Read more on The Conversation<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Join the fun:<\/strong> Add Your event<\/a> | Submit a Press Release<\/a> | Add your listing<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When it comes to big finds, scientists need more than just luck and chance: The author's backpack was hiding this almost complete therapsid fossil. Was finding it all down to luck? Julien Benoit The history of science abounds with stories about discoveries made by chance. One of the most famous cases, involves French physicist Antoine […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4584],"tags":[2327,5201,8890,4343,6651,7218,3432,3953,4422,4261],"class_list":{"0":"post-85622","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-africa-news-2","7":"tag-chance","8":"tag-comes","9":"tag-conversation","10":"tag-finds","11":"tag-just","12":"tag-luck","13":"tag-more","14":"tag-need","15":"tag-scientists","16":"tag-than","17":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85622","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=85622"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85622\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}