{"id":5979,"date":"2021-06-20T11:44:22","date_gmt":"2021-06-20T11:44:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/really.zonky.org\/?p=5979"},"modified":"2021-06-20T11:47:45","modified_gmt":"2021-06-20T11:47:45","slug":"why-do-research-into-the-bleeding-obvious","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/really.zonky.org\/?p=5979","title":{"rendered":"Why Do Research Into The &#8220;Bleeding Obvious&#8221;?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Whenever there&#8217;s some research paper on something obvious published in the &#8220;popular press&#8221; there are always commentators who wonder why. There&#8217;s a variety of reason why, but the first is by <em>far<\/em> the most important.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Just because something is known to be true doesn&#8217;t actually make it true. The point of proper research, experimentation, and evaluation is to <em>test<\/em> the truth of something and to verify that truth. Old wives tales may or may not be true (and some are), but until they are tested they remain just tales.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The second reason is to verify another researcher&#8217;s finding &#8211; a fact verified by one researcher (or research team) isn&#8217;t as fully verified as a fact verified by two or more. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And lastly, researchers have to research to learn their trade. Nobody would trust a plumber who hasn&#8217;t yet plumbed or an electrician who hasn&#8217;t yet fitted a plug, so why should researchers start with real problems?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large is-style-default\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"695\" height=\"521\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/really.zonky.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021-03-01-the-missing-sign.jpeg?resize=695%2C521&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-5939\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/really.zonky.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021-03-01-the-missing-sign.jpeg?resize=1024%2C768&amp;ssl=1 1024w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/really.zonky.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021-03-01-the-missing-sign.jpeg?resize=300%2C225&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/really.zonky.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021-03-01-the-missing-sign.jpeg?resize=768%2C576&amp;ssl=1 768w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/really.zonky.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021-03-01-the-missing-sign.jpeg?resize=1536%2C1151&amp;ssl=1 1536w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/really.zonky.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021-03-01-the-missing-sign.jpeg?resize=2048%2C1535&amp;ssl=1 2048w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/really.zonky.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021-03-01-the-missing-sign.jpeg?w=1390&amp;ssl=1 1390w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 695px) 100vw, 695px\" \/><figcaption>The Missing Sign<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Whenever there&#8217;s some research paper on something obvious published in the &#8220;popular press&#8221; there are always commentators who wonder why. There&#8217;s a variety of reason why, but the first is by far the most important. Just because something is known to be true doesn&#8217;t actually make it true. The point of proper research, experimentation, and <a href='https:\/\/really.zonky.org\/?p=5979' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[7],"tags":[1334,2028,131],"class_list":["post-5979","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-media","tag-press","tag-research","category-7-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1f2KI-1yr","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/really.zonky.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5979","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/really.zonky.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/really.zonky.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/really.zonky.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/really.zonky.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5979"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/really.zonky.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5979\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5982,"href":"https:\/\/really.zonky.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5979\/revisions\/5982"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/really.zonky.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/really.zonky.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5979"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/really.zonky.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}