About SciencePostmortems

Our Mission

SciencePostmortems is a platform dedicated to sharing, discussing, and learning from mistakes in science. We believe that fostering a better error culture where mistakes are seen as opportunities to learn is essential for scientific progress.

Why Error Culture Matters

In scientific research, mistakes are inevitable. However, these mistakes often remain hidden due to publication bias, career pressures, and a culture that stigmatizes failure. This prevents the scientific community from learning valuable lessons and leads to:

• Repeated errors across different research groups
• Wasted resources as others encounter the same pitfalls
• Missed opportunities for methodological improvements
• Psychological burden on researchers who feel isolated in their failures

How It Works

Our platform allows researchers to anonymously share their scientific mistakes, what went wrong, why it happened, and most importantly, what they learned from the experience. Each report is structured to highlight:

• Description: What happened
• Reason: Why it happened
• Learning: What can be learned from this experience

Community members can comment on reports, share their own similar experiences, and subscribe to categories relevant to their field of research.

Privacy and Anonymity

We understand the sensitivity of sharing mistakes, especially in competitive academic environments. Our platform is designed with privacy in mind:

• All posts are anonymous, showing only optional job titles and fields of study
• Email addresses are used only for authentication and optional notifications
• No personal identifiers are displayed publicly

Join Us

Whether you're a researcher, lab technician, professor, or student, your experiences matter. By sharing your scientific mistakes and what you learned from them, you contribute to a healthier research culture that embraces learning from failure.