princepawn,

With all due respect, I have personally found it helpful to take the extra time to be self-effacing in online circles.

As a scientist, I'm sure you can appreciate the importance of proper data collection techniques. Is it not wise and proper to ensure the collection process doesn't taint (pun intended) the experiments, the results, and the conclusions being observed?

Besides, what's wrong with stepping back and mentally testing your conclusions and hypotheses against the observed results? This is, in many ways, basic programming.

To provide a perl example from my own experience, I had a dickens of a time getting sub's to work when I first tackled them. It finally worked when I prepended an ampersand to the name of the subroutine. I (erroneously) assumed that perl requires ampersands when invoking custom procedures, much the same way it requires symbols in front of variables.

Since then, I've learned that the rules are more subtle and more flexible and I've modified my mental understanding to allow for that.

Remember Occam's Razor: When faced with more than one equally viable explanation for a problem, more often than not, the simplest solution is the right one. (Poorly paraphrased, I know, but you get the idea.)

Just a thought...