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We are giving $1,000 prizes to 1,000 scholars simply for making clear when data were used to generate or test a hypothesis. Science is the best tool we have for understanding the way the natural world works. Unfortunately, it is in our imperfect hands. Though scientists are curious and can be quite clever, we also fall victim to biases that can cloud our vision. We seek rewards from our community, we ignore information that contradicts what we believe, and we are capable of elaborate rationalizations for our decisions. We are masters of self-deception. Yet we don’t want to be. Many scientists choose their career because they are curious and want to find real answers to meaningful questions. In its idealized form, science is a process of proposing explanations and then using data to expose their weaknesses and improve them. This process is both elegant and brutal. It is elegant when we find a new way to explain the world, a way that no one has thought of before. It is brutal in a way that is familiar to any graduate student who has proposed an experiment to a committee or to any researcher who has submitted a paper for peer-review. Logical errors, alternative explanations, and falsification are not just common – they are baked into the process.
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