GORDON'S FIRST LAW:
If a research project is not worth doing at all, it is not worth doing well.

MURPHY'S LAW OF RESEARCH:
Enough research will tend to support your theory.

MAIER'S LAW:
If the facts do not tend to conform to your theory, they must be disposed of.
Corollaries:
1. The bigger the theory, the better.
2. The experiment may be considered a success if no more than 50% of the observed measurements must be discarded to obtain a correspondence with the theory.

WILLIAM'S AND HOLLAND'S LAW:
If enough data is collected, anything may be proven by statistical methods.

EDINGTON'S THEORY:
The number of different hypotheses erected to explain a given biological phenomenon is inversely proportional to the available knowledge.

PEER'S LAW:
The solution to a problem changes the nature of the problem.

HARVARD LAW:
Under the most rigorously controlled conditions of pressure, temperature, volume, humidity, and other variables, the organism will do as it damn well pleases.

FORTH LAW OF REVISION:
After painstaking and careful analysis of a sample, you are always told that it is the wrong sample and doesn't apply to the problem.

HERSH'S LAW:
Biochemistry expands to fill the space and time available for it's completion and publication.

RULE OF ACCURACY:
When working toward the solution of a problem, it always helps if you know the answer.

YOUNG'S LAW:
All great discoveries are made by mistake.
Corollary:
The greater the funding, the longer it takes to make the mistake.

HOARE'S LAW OF LARGE PROBLEMS:
Inside every large problem is a small problem struggling to get out.

FETT'S LAW OF THE LAB:
Never replicate a successful experiment.

WYSZOWSKI'S FIRST LAW:
No experiment is reproducible.

FUTILITY FACTOR:
No experiment is ever a complete failure- it can always serve as a negative example.

MR. COOPER'S LAW:
If you do not understand a particular word in a piece of technical writing, ignore it. The piece will make perfect sense without it.

PARKINSON'S LAW FOR MEDICAL RESEARCH:
Successful research attracts the bigger grant which makes further research impossible.

PARKINSON'S SIXTH LAW:
The progress of science varies inversely with the number of journals published.

WHOLE PICTURE PRINCIPLE:
Research scientists are so wrapped up in their own narrow endeavors that they cannot possibly see the whole picture of anything, including their own research.
Corollary:
The Director of Research should know as little as possible about the specific subject of research he is administering.

BROOKE'S LAW:
Whenever a system becomes completely defined, some damn fool discovers something which either abolishes the system or expands it beyond recognition.

CAMPBELL'S LAW:
Nature abhors a vacuous experimenter.

MESKIMEN'S LAW:
There is never time to do it right, but there is always time to do it over.