WHY THERE IS NO HOPE OF DOING A PERFECT RESEARCH
“There is no Hope of
Doing Perfect Research “(Griffiths 1998, p 97).
Research is the search, real search and continuous search for
information. Technically, it can be defined as a collection of planned and
systematic activities designed to discover facts and relationships that exist
or do not exist among the phenomena of the environment (Anyiwe and Ibeh 1-2).
Research can be in its basic form in which it is aimed at new discoveries and
advancement of knowledge or in its applied form, in which it is concerned with
finding out the workability or usefulness of established ideas or theories in
practical situations. No matter the form, there is a consensus that research is
very important for the advancement of knowledge and societal development.
Although, the knowledge acquired through research is different from that from casual activity in the sense that it is technical and not merely of common sense, it should be noted that there has been no perfect research and so, one has to agree with the assertion there is no hope of doing perfect research (Griffiths 97). Although, researchers strive to arrive at precise results, such results always fall short of perfection. There are at least five reasons why a typical researcher will not produce a perfect research output. What comes to mind first is the fact that the researcher is an imperfect human being living in a World that bespeaks of every other thing else but perfection. It can therefore be said that an imperfect researcher who thrives in an imperfect environment will most likely not be able to produce a perfect research output.
Another reason has to do with the researcher’s perspective of the phenomenon under consideration. Although, the phrase ‘holistic view’ is always recurring, no one can claim to have a holistic view of any environmental phenomenon. No matter how good a researcher’s perspective is about a phenomenon, it is never a complete view and there is usually a part omitted. Because, people see and remember differently, there is no hope of a researcher doing a perfect research since there is always a part (no matter how small) of the ‘holistic view’ that is not seen.
In the same vein, the possibility of errors (both systematic and random) at different stages of the research process renders the hope for a perfect research useless. Researchers as much as they try can only minimize errors, they cannot eliminate them. The presence of limitations in any research work cannot be over-emphasized. Even though the researcher could have done better, all things being equal, such limitations however place a constraint on the quality and depth of research and ensure that research outcomes are imperfect. Moreover, the fact that every phenomena is subject to evolution renders the prospect for perfect research unachievable. A quality research today may turn out to be an awful result the next day when the greater phenomenon of time and chance would have acted on it.
As a matter of fact, no research is ever meant to be perfect. This is because research itself would lose its essence if it ever attains perfection. Research is a never ending process that goes hand-in-hand with mankind’s existence and it is nearly impossible to achieve a state of perfection in conducting research because it will mark the end of a next possible research (Reisyraoul’s blog).
The degree of imperfection in research output varies from field to field and is usually higher in social sciences (allowing for the use of loose significance level and lower confidence level) because of the erratic nature of the object of study; and lower in pure sciences (allowing for the use of strict significance level and higher confidence level) because the object of study can be conditioned and controlled. However, imperfection of research prevails in every field and we shall discuss this with reference to examples of research done in the two extreme fields of social sciences and pure sciences.
In the history of Economic thought, no ideological revolution is more powerful than the Keynesian revolution. The Keynesian revolution marked the emergence of macroeconomics and acceptance of the fundamental role of the state in the economy after the great depression of the late 1929 and early 1930s. One man who was largely behind the revolution was Lord John Maynard Keynes. Although, Keynes was originally a classical Economist, he rebelled against the classical orthodoxy thereby establishing Keynesian Economics. While the disciples of Classical Economics advocated that in the long run, the invisible hand would restore the economy from a severe depression to a normal state, Keynes argued that ‘in the long run, we would all be dead.’ He therefore advocated a pre-meditated intervention of government by means of broad economic policy to restore the economy to a full employment state. His ideas on how to achieve this are contained in his magnum opus, ‘The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money’ published in 1936. Keynes was the first to answer in a systematic and scientific manner, the question of what determines aggregate consumption spending in an economy at any given time. In doing this, Keynes developed an absolute income hypothesis in which he defined the propensity to consume as a functional relationship between a given level of real income and the expenditure on consumption out of that given level of income (Iyoha 92). Keynes therefore established that current consumption depends on current income.
However, after World War II, Professor Simon Kuznets attempted to assess the empirical relevance of Keynes’ hypothesis. Unfortunately, the Keynesian consumption function did not perform very well as results obtained were not consistent with the Keynesian hypotheses. The results showed that the simple Keynesian function was unstable and that current income did not explain most of the variations of consumption expenditures of households and most importantly, that there was not one but, in fact, two consumption functions – one obtained from budget study data and also from cyclical time-series data (the short run consumption function which was Keynesian) and the other from secular time-series data (the long-run consumption function). The discovery of two consumption functions was almost an embarrassment to Keynes who pioneered the field of macroeconomics. Attempts to reconcile the short-run success of the Keynesian consumption function with its long-run failure led to the postulation of a ‘Ratchet effect’ model which was first advanced by Professor Paul Samuelson in 1943. Since that time, other economists including Professor J.S Duesenberry (1949), Professors F. Modigliani and R.E Brumberg (1954) and Professor Milton Friedman (1957) have attempted to explain the ‘ratchet effect’ and obtained pretty different results. This illustrates our argument that there is no hope of doing a perfect research.
In the pure sciences, many examples abound but here, we would go back to antiquity in the time of Copernicus and the controversy surrounding the geocentric system and the heliocentric system. Astronomy until the 1400s was dominated by the idea that the earth stood at the centre of the Universe (Allyngibson blog) known as geocentrism. This idea, although erroneous was strongly advocated by the Church and based on Biblical references. However, it was not until the 16th century that a fully predictive model of a heliocentric system was presented by Nicolaus Copernicus. Although, the model was supported by Johannes Kepler with his inclusion of elliptical orbits and Galileo Galilei who made supporting observations using his telescope, the Church still insisted on the incorrect notion of geocentrism. Today, modern science has established the notion of heliocentrism thereby exposing the grossly imperfect research knowledge of the Church. In the same vein, the fact that many more things have been discovered about the heliocentric system also confirms the imperfect research knowledge of early scientists. What this tells us is that as a result of multiplicity of factors which are mutually re-inforcing, there is no hope of doing a perfect research.
Although, computers have made it possible for researchers to attain a high degree of accuracy, however, this still falls below the utopian notion of perfection. Perhaps, it is in recognition of this stark reality that Economists have made the ceteris paribus assumption and the error term concept permanent features in their analyses. The lesson to be learnt at the end is that while it is the duty of the researcher to attempt to approximate perfection, there is really no hope he would ever get there.
References
Anyiwe, Mercy, and Ibeh Solomon. Statistical Handbook for
Economists. Benin-City: AMA, 2006. Print.
Iyoha, Milton. Macroeconomics: Theory and Policy. Benin-City:
Mindex, 2004. Print.
Reisyraoul’s Blog. “There is no Hope of Doing Perfect
Research (Griffiths 1998, P 97). Do you agree?” Reisyraoul’s blog, 2012. Web.
13 May 2013 <http://reisyraoul.wordpress.com/2012/08/28/there-is-no-hope-of-doing-perfect-research-griffiths-1998-p97-do-you-agree-2/>
Allyn Gibson blog. “Galileo and the Heliocentric model of the
Solar System.” Allyn Gibson blog, 1999. Web. 13 May 2013 <http://www.allyngibson.net/?page_id=932>
