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Updated: May 2, 2026

Perspectives on Neuroscience
Published on: July 31, 2007
Science is always unfinished: rethinking the demand for complete stories
1Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Facultad de Ciencias Químicas y Farmacéuticas, Universidad de Chile, Santiago, Chile; Advanced Center for Chronic Diseases (ACCDiS), Facultad de Ciencias Químicas y Farmacéuticas, Universidad de Chile, Santiago, Chile.
None:
The 'complete story' has become the standard in top journals. Narrative structure helps communicate science, but requiring mechanistic completeness for publication can exclude important discoveries, delay their dissemination, and push researchers to overfit their data to a narrative. This essay makes the case for making room for rigorous, unfinished stories.
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