How many ways can you think of to boil an egg? And why would you want to do it in each of those different ways, if your only purpose was to get the egg boiled?
Sometimes, the journey is NOT the destination. If it is, I can understand taking the long scenic route and stopping to admire the sights. But if you're sprinting to a finish line, and hte prize is a grant that covers your next three years of research, DO NOT tell me the scenic route matters. The destination matters.
The most pathetic journey is when you don't know where you're going or why you want to go there, or even how to get there. All you know is that there's cool stuff along the way. Oh, and if you're not at your destination in a month you might as well be dead.
The same goes with science- Find the answer, and it doesn't matter how you got there- whether it was the coolest new method of sequencing DNA off a single bacterium, or you grew 10 liters of culture.
Boil the egg, and your breakfast-eater is happy. Get to the destination, and it doesn't matter what road you take. Do the experiment, and you get your paper published.
Bottom line- Just do it. It doesn't matter how.
Knowing that the means is not the end, if you still choose to think of the coolest means of getting there, what kind of scientist does that make you?
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