I'm doing my MSc project after passing all my courses in the first year of the MSc curriculum. It's a combination of computational and experimental methods in biology. I originally wanted to do a purely computational project, but my supervisor talked me into doing both. He also talked me into doing a full-year project, instead of a half-year one.

I've spent almost 4 months in a lab now. The more I read and think about my topic, the more I'm convinced it cannot be done in the way my supervisor wanted it. In fact, I even have articles saying why it won't work. I showed him the articles and his response was "I did not know this". He than proposed a work-around. After 3 weeks of work and reading, I show him more articles saying this new approach won't work as well. He keeps saying his original idea is good, but how can I believe it when I have all those articles saying otherwise? Even my mathematical model says otherwise.


What should I do? I know that the idea of a master thesis project is to force students to work independently, but isn't it supervisors role to ensure this independence takes them into the right direction? I have a feeling my supervisor hasn't really though through this project before he offered to me. He even said something like "I'm only getting into this field of research". I know I made a bad choice, but how do I sort this out?

In summary, my problems are:
1. I don't believe in my project anymore
2. I have no confidence in my supervisor to guide me through the project
3. It's a full year project so I need to have a thesis (and results) that justify all those credits
4. I really want to go for a PhD, but I need a good thesis for this and I need to be finished on time (September 2010 at the latest)