ABSTRACT
One of the most valuable lessons that I learned while studying with A1 Riley was not to let personal expectations or beliefs limit consideration of even the most unlikely explanation of the results of an experiment. Students in Al's lab not only were encouraged to generate possible alternative explanations, they were challenged to do so. The generation of alternative explanations was a goal in itself. The more alternative explanations one could generate the better one would be able to understand the phenomenon being studied. Either one could find a way to rule out each alternative in turn, and hence the more believable one's explanation would be, or one would find better supportive evidence for one of the alternatives, and one would become a convert. Either way we (and science) would be the better for it.
