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No it's not hopeless, but when done right it becomes indistinguishable from true investigative and research work; wouldn't be nice if you could share the results of that extensive effort put into uncovering the truth so that others could benefit? Oh, wait...


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> No conclusion? What's the point of doing research or reporting it if you learned nothing?

This attitude is (imho) a major problem in research/academia. If you've done research into something you should report it even if the results were unclear, ambiguous, or non-existent. For one it lets people know if this is a fruitful avenue to pursue and/or whether further study is warranted. It can thus reduce unnecessary repetition of effort. Furthermore, making the findings and methodology public enables people to use it as a starting point for other studies, perhaps varying the methodology or asking different questions on related topics.

Though I think @cypherpunks01 and @WalterSear are likely right about this particular article/page.


Well, academics routinely do disseminate such knowledge. Not least, to appeal to the community to find such a solution.

It is highly unlikely a researcher in "finding X" is an expert in "solving X" or otherwise has the capacity to do so.

The "head in the sand" approach here doesn't "ease community tensions" it does precisely the opposite: prolong them for fear open investigation "goes against the consensus".


Even if you were to do that, the fact that the research is hidden in the first place is enough alone to say "they are keeping the truth from us" and make our long youtube vids that tell you the Real Truth.

If you spent months doing research, is there a way you could share your findings besides broad stroke sweeping statements? All these discussions get cluttered with people offering few details about their investigative process but offering their conclusions. It doesn't serve to move the discussion forward because there are anecdotal experiences on both sides.

to tell whether a piece of research is false or not, you need to be able to find out what it was. then you can conclusively prove it false. lost research like tesla's weather control notes, the alchemists' transmutation of lead into gold, or water-powered cars can instead give rise to conspiracy theories about how it was suppressed by the powerful and wasted lifetimes that could have been dedicated to something productive

Agreed, was not referring to the researchers, rather those getting informed by the pop media. I've heard people dismissing this known process as an impossibility

Researching and unearthing facts is pretty much a different activity than "creating" ones or fake evidence, isn't it?

Only if there is nothing coming out of this research. Many things are often discovered when looking for something else.

I’m also going to suppose that in order to find truth, the basic prerequisite is that you, as a researcher, have to be brutally honest – first and foremost, with yourself and about the quality of your own work. Here one immediately encounters a contradiction, as such honesty appears to have a very minor role in many people’s agendas. Very quickly after your initiation in the academic world, you learn that being “too honest” about your work is a bad thing and that stating your research’s shortcomings “too openly” is a big faux pas. Instead, you are taught to “sell” your work, to worry about your “image”, and to be strategic in your vocabulary and where you use it.

contrast with the article and discussion at:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6353957


How is research worthless?

Or how about you provide some peer-reviewed research rather than "challenging" everyone else to find it?

I already suspected that people construct truths to meet their expectation and I think I might just learn something useful about the tells of fabrications if only I could see the research, but unfortunately it's paywalled.

You can find anything if your research isn't significant?

I agree that there'd need to be an independent research body to get into more depth, otherwise everyone will be sharing based on biased perspectives or shallow data.

I'd be interested in such serious research too, but so far everything I've ever seen on the topic has pretty clearly been "research", emphasized scare quotes, with predetermined results that just happen to precisely flatter the preconceived notions of the researchers, and I don't trust the results.

What's sad is I don't believe any of these research papers anymore. Both ways can be found good or bad. It's impossible to deal with.

You can not trust any research done where the career of the researcher depends on them finding results.

As an aspiring researcher, I quite agree. I know many researchers who have similar feelings.

But of course, this means getting off the capitalistic grant-publication-grant model of research.


If a 4 word claim with a few overstyled charts qualifies as research then we're doomed anyways.

Too bad it is literally impossible to find out "all the information" on anything, huh? So what level of research is acceptable?
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