The work of science is the best teacher of science. Research is why universities are great places to teach and learn. That’s as good a reason as any to keep funding science. The economic benefits and the inherent challenge are good. But also the opportunities to learn are uniquely powerful. For people to learn cutting edge science, they have to be in it.

There’s this article on the Wall Street Journal (behind a paywall, of course) that talks about the work being the teacher. I very much agree. To produce good science requires a person to do the work. There’s no way to out-think it. Failure is a big part of that, too. Experiments start to fail when we are about to learn something.

I suspect that it’s true for lots of fields. Learning to draw, write, or anything creative means constant failure. But the only way to progress is to do the work.