Stories don't tell the whole story

Here is my failed submission to the nature career columnist competition:

Every time I sit down to write a paper or prepare a presentation I ponder the same question. How much, if at all, should I highlight and discuss my reservations or doubts about my own research? In the 1974 Caltech Commencement address Richard Feynman said that when reporting an experiment “Details that could throw doubt on your interpretation must be given, if you know them.” This idea appeals to me and fits with how we are taught that science moves forward. However, throughout my career, rarely has anyone encouraged me to express more doubts about my results or be more open about my reservations. In fact, almost the opposite. Co-authors, colleagues and mentors might suggest I leave something out of a manuscript and wait to see if the reviewers question it, or they might encourage me to try and keep my story simple in a presentation, so I don't confuse people. Just to be clear, I am not discussing issues of fraud, hiding or 'fudging' the data here, I am focusing on the issue of how to craft an interesting and concise narrative while representing as fully as possible the complicated and messy set of results that have accumulated.

A simple example: Say I test a group of 10 subjects on a task, and find that they perform significantly better after intervention A. Maybe this is a result that I'm using to build up a theory about A. But what if the group improvement was mainly due to a large improvement in 3 of the subjects? There is no reason to exclude these subjects, they comprise 30% of my sample, and the difference is statistically significant. However, this to me, seems relevant to my interpretation. What's happening with the other 7 subjects? Maybe, on average they also show an improvement but much smaller and less clear. Do I make a point of highlighting this question?

We are taught that doing science isn't about “selling” a story. But when it comes to communicating our data to our colleagues, we are encouraged to draft a simple, compelling, engaging, and clear story. When submitting a paper to a journal we have to argue for why our results are interesting and important, in order to convince the editors and the reviewers that our work should be published. When applying for a grant we want to convince that our work should be funded. Even when giving a talk we want to convince the audience that attending was worth their time.

And what is more convincing and memorable than a neat story? We are scientists, but we are also people. We have limited memory for collections of data that aren't assembled into a narrative. A good story is much more compelling, effective, and memorable than a tangle of data with multiple potential interpretations. Communicating with our colleagues is one of the most important parts of our job; taking these big messy data sets and distilling meaning from them for others to be able to easily build on. But every story is a choice that highlights certain aspects and downplays others. Different ways of looking at the data might lead you to tell slightly or radically different stories, each just as legitimate as the other.

I fear that raising doubts about my own work would make it less comprehensible, less believable and less likely to be cited. I also worry it makes me seem less competent. So how do I deal with this problem? How do you deal with this? So far, I have prioritized convincing over expressing my doubts, but to me that is an unsatisfying solution. I think a better solution could be found in changing the format in which we, as scientists, communicate with each other, but that is a whole topic in itself.