Random Walk Research LLC

Further study required

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Do a google scholar search with keywords “further study required.” You’ll find a plethora of papers that use that phrase or a close variation of it. Here’s just a very small sampling of ones that I found in my most recent search:

“…require further study.”

“Further study will be required, however,…”

“…further study should be pursued in this area.”

“…further study of the basic data is in order.”

“Further study required” is a catch-all, opening the door for continued investigation in that particular field. It’s basically saying, “this is what we found and we think it’s meaningful but we’re not sure so someone (maybe us) needs to keep working on this to confirm, refute, or further illuminate the cool and/or bizarre stuff we just discovered. A cynic would say, this is just a means to getting funding (or more funding), but who cares, you need to get paid for your labor and if someone thinks it’s worth funding then that’s on them, as long as the proposer is well-intentioned and genuinely curious.

The phrase “further study required” is a hallmark of what science – rather research – is all about. Science and research are often conflated, confused, and it is this confusion that causes the layperson consternation about what science is, really.

A quick duckduckgo search of “science” reveals the following definitions:

  1. The observation, identification, description, experimental investigation, and theoretical explanation of phenomena.
  2. Such activities restricted to a class of natural phenomena.
  3. A systematic method or body of knowledge in a given area.

While a search of “research” reveals:

  1. Careful study of a given subject, field, or problem, undertaken to discover facts or principles.
  2. An act or period of such study.
  3. Diligent inquiry, examination, or study; laborious or continued search after facts or principles; investigation: as, microscopical research; historical researches.

See the subtlety of difference? Science is the step by step quest of knowledge while research is just one step in that quest.

These definitions also lead us to a larger question within in the context of reporting new scientific findings. If science is a body of knowledge, often based on or informed by hypotheses and/or theories, then scientists must be rational in expecting revision of their hypotheses and theories (for example, during open-ended research investigations) while being confident about their original ideas. Sherrilyn Roush discusses this in “Fallibility and Authority,” a chapter in Leadership in Science and Technology: A Reference Handbook; William Sims Bainbridge, ed., SAGE Press, 2012. Basically, Sherrilyn says that while scientists accept revision as a likely outcome of continued investigation, when the results are broadcast to the public, if those results are contradictory to a generally accepted idea or practice, then public outcry ensues.

Here’s an illuminating paragraph that she writes in this book chapter:

“This cynical, or at least exasperated, response to revisions rests partly on mistaken assumptions about scientific inquiry and partly on unfortunate distortions wrought by the marketplace, for which science gets blamed. The first type of mistake occurs when overly generic statements of scientific results make it look as if new research contradicts old research when it does not. Second, there is a mistaken belief that revision is an indication of something bad or unreliable about science. Finally, because human beings crave simple, definite answers and sure solutions, journalists are encouraged to bring satisfaction by overstating results, and companies stand to make a profit by overselling tentative and limited conclusions about efficacy. Overstated conclusions are more likely to turn out false in the course of time and thus contribute to a mistaken impression of dramatic revision on the part of scientists. Scientists do revise claims. However, they revise less dramatically and less often than it appears.”

That’s a good paragraph. That insight also makes it troublesome when someone proclaims that they “follow the science” or “believe in science.” What that person means is that they believe in scientific inquiry or perhaps the body of knowledge that forms the foundation of a new finding or discovery. But even that is troublesome, because often people are responding to an application of a scientific finding, which puts one into the realm of engineering and technology. Once you do that, you now must qualify your enthusiasm for science with the risk/benefit associated with that application. And if that application is new to the world, then further study will be required to see how it interfaces with the human endeavor. (See what I did there?)

OK, well I think that’s a good stopping point for this blog entry. If you remain interested in what I have to say, please keep coming back to the Further Study Required blog! I’ll mostly talk about the following topics:

I’ll also probably talk about other subjects that interest me, in general. I’m sure entries will range from insightful to mundane. Feel free to choose what you read. My goal is to write 1 - 2 entries per week for the foreseeable future.

References

Roush, S., 2012. Fallibility and Authority. Leadership in science and technology: A reference handbook.
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