Nothing comes to existence perfectly formed. Rome, as the saying goes, wasn’t built in a day. The Apollo 11 spacecraft that put Armstrong and Aldrin on the Moon didn’t just spring out of the factory. It took numerous iterations—through the Mercury, Gemini, and earlier Apollo missions—to get it right. For scientists, each iteration is progress. If we get a glimpse into the dark room, that’s a contribution. If we don’t find what we thought we’d find, that’s a contribution. If we change a single unknown unknown to a known unknown, that’s a contribution. If we ask a better question than the ones
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