Think Like a Rocket Scientist: Simple Strategies You Can Use to Make Giant Leaps in Work and Life

by Ozan Varol

When we start with a single hypothesis and run with the first idea that pops into mind, it’s much easier for that hypothesis to become our master. It anchors us and blinds us to alternatives sitting in the periphery. As author Robertson Davies put it, “The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend.”23 If the mind anticipates a single answer—the Mars Polar Lander may be alive—that’s what the eye will see. Before announcing a working hypothesis, ask yourself, what are my preconceptions? What do I believe to be true? Also ask, do I really want this particular hypothesis to be true? If so, be careful. Be very careful. Much as in life, if you like someone, you’ll tend to overlook their flaws. You’ll find signals from a love interest—or a spacecraft—even when they’re not sending any. To make sure you don’t fall in love with a single hypothesis, generate several. When you’ve got multiple hypotheses, you reduce your attachment to any one of them and make it more difficult to quickly settle on one. With this strategy, as Chamberlin explains, the scientist becomes “the parent of a family of hypotheses: and, by his parental relation to all, he is forbidden to fasten his affections unduly upon any one.”