Scientific Research?

Invalidating research by questioning the immediate applicability of research results is an unsustainable position. To begin with, results from research is primary information. The value of the results is not always explicit, clear or immediate.

Immediate value of research is relative to the disciplinary body of knowledge within which the particular research was placed. It is within that space that the work would need to be examined first, but there is more. Natural phenomenon does not stand alone. It is part of an intrincate and most often invisible network of influencing factors. Boundaries among disciplines are artificial and were forced by organizational needs of institutions and other such enterprises. Everything is connected to everything else in nature.

In this context, the influence of a particular research experiment is normally part of a line of research, or inquire with unknown effects on other external disciplines. This status remains so until the time when it is discovered by researchers in those other disciplines. Interdisciplinary crossover is not only possible but desirable.

On the other hand, regardless of applicability, there may be research and lines of inquire with weak theoretical assumptions. This would be a problem. Unequivocally acceptance of basic assumptions within a theoretical framework leads into weak science, waste of resources and mediocrity. Some researchers would complain about this statement and it may not be their experience or obvious within their own areas of expertise. After all, most researchers receive strong training on research methodologies to critically evaluate possible pitfalls in their own work. This includes a thorough understanding of the assumptions on which those methodologies rest.

The study of properties, critical components, factors or their interrelations in theoretical frameworks is a type of research that routinely receives funding awards because their results either affirm or question the fundamental assumptions of the framework. But readers of reports on such research should beware of the assumptions hid in the methodology. Readers should judge the methodology and the conclusions.

It is important that researchers, are not only trained about methodologies and their fundamental assumptions, but that they are also trained to question those fundamental assumptions. This is particularly important about their specific expertise and assumptions in their own line of research.

Any student who is not being trained to ask questions, to think critically even about their education, is missing the point. Conversations with young researchers make me think that the value of strong theories is being minimized, dismissed, or -- worse yet -- unknown by them in their research activities. Trained researchers should be expected to respond for the state of the fundamental assumptions in their theoretical paradigms.