"Do Your Own Research" - Are *You* Doing *Your* Own Research?

[Kooky]

You will often hear the phrase "do your own research" or, "I am doing my own research" bandied about.

But does anybody actually do their own research?

Are COVID skeptics who tell us to "do your own research" actually conducting their own clinical trials of vaccines, or doing wide ranging epidemiological studies?

Are people who talk about "doing [their] own research" concerning climate change actually researching climate data on their own? Are they trekking to the poles to learn about Artic or Antarctic ice levels?

As far as I can tell, when people say they are doing their own research, what they actually mean is that they do a Google search or hop on Youtube, and then read a couple of websites or watch a video that confirms what they already know.

Am I missing something here?

Who on RF is doing their own research, and how?

 

[Nimos]

Are people who talk about "doing [their] own research" concerning climate change actually researching climate data on their own? Are they trekking to the poles to learn about Artic or Antarctic ice levels?

As far as I can tell, when people say they are doing their own research, what they actually mean is that they do a Google search or hop on Youtube, and then read a couple of websites or watch a video that confirms what they already know.

Am I missing something here?

Who on RF is doing their own research, and how?

In that case, I am not.

I usually try to get or find opposite views and listen to their arguments and best of all counterarguments if possible.

 

[Sgt. Pepper]

In that case, I am not.

I usually try to get or find opposite views and listen to their arguments and best of all counterarguments if possible.

^ What Nimos said.

 

[Vitality]

Even scientific researchers aren’t “doing their own research” by technical standards. Research requires teams to evaluate data and outcome of hypotheses to better understand what considerations must be accounted for. Best anyone can do is learn how to interpret data and the presentation of such. So, if that’s what you’re talking about, sure, I have spent years in academia learning how to do research and have taken the time to educate myself on a variety of topics by analyzing the available conclusions and methods involved with evaluating data pertaining to specific hypotheses. I do not, however, pretend to have answers to questions that have yet to be determined or where data and research is lacking.

 

[The Hammer]

Who on RF is doing their own research, and how?

Eventually? But not currently.

I compile and make inferences off of other people's research conclusions.

 

[Stevicus]

You will often hear the phrase "do your own research" or, "I am doing my own research" bandied about.

But does anybody actually do their own research?

Are COVID skeptics who tell us to "do your own research" actually conducting their own clinical trials of vaccines, or doing wide ranging epidemiological studies?

Are people who talk about "doing [their] own research" concerning climate change actually researching climate data on their own? Are they trekking to the poles to learn about Artic or Antarctic ice levels?

As far as I can tell, when people say they are doing their own research, what they actually mean is that they do a Google search or hop on Youtube, and then read a couple of websites or watch a video that confirms what they already know.

Am I missing something here?

Who on RF is doing their own research, and how?

In addition to the excellent questions you're asking here, I would also ask if someone's education, experience, or expertise would qualify them to be able to analyze whatever data or information their research might reveal.

More often than not, it's a case where someone might read someone else's research and conclusions, perhaps thinking that it's legitimate and scientific.

The average layperson wouldn't automatically know who is a knowledgeable, respected source, as opposed to a source which might be...questionable. That question, in and of itself, can also raise people's hackles. If someone posts something from Prager U or something like that, a lot of people won't accept it - and for good reason. But some people may not be able to tell the difference.

Some people are often terribly vague about how they might express things, especially in some articles or advertisements where they refer to "science" in very non-committal terms, like "Science has discovered a great new cure." Things like "4 out of 5 dentists surveyed."

 

[Kooky]

Even scientific researchers aren’t “doing their own research” by technical standards. Research requires teams to evaluate data and outcome of hypotheses to better understand what considerations must be accounted for. Best anyone can do is learn how to interpret data and the presentation of such. So, if that’s what you’re talking about, sure, I have spent years in academia learning how to do research and have taken the time to educate myself on a variety of topics by analyzing the available conclusions and methods involved with evaluating data pertaining to specific hypotheses. I do not, however, pretend to have answers to questions that have yet to be determined or where data and research is lacking.

That must give you a pretty good leg up your colleagues; most academics I know actually fare very poorly when made to analyze and evaluate data outside their chosen field, and a lot of people tend to already be out of their depth when they have to look at data from outside their chosen specialization (which of course doesn't stop them from assuming their analysis is correct regardless).

 

[Vitality]

That must give you a pretty good leg up your colleagues; most academics I know actually fare very poorly when made to analyze and evaluate data outside their chosen field, and a lot of people tend to already be out of their depth when they have to look at data from outside their chosen specialization (which of course doesn't stop them from assuming their analysis is correct regardless).

That’s a valid point. I am no longer involved in research. At least for now. I switched professions. Thus, I rely on experts. My point was that I am well acquainted with scientific standards when it comes to interpretation of data, which encourages me to not be presumptive.

 

[RestlessSoul]

I am of a generation that thinks Googling something doesn’t really qualify as research, but spending time in a library does. This may be both a prejudice and an anachronism on my part. After all, I just googled a definition of ‘research’ whilst sitting just a few feet from a shelf with a dictionary on it. Anyway, here it is…

 

[stvdv]

Am I missing something here?

YES

"I am missing" Frubels from hardcore Atheists

One of the best OP's in a long time
But probably the Atheists are asleep still

 

[Heyo]

As far as I can tell, when people say they are doing their own research, what they actually mean is that they do a Google search or hop on Youtube, and then read a couple of websites or watch a video that confirms what they already know.

Ever heard of "literature research"? It is one of the first thing you do when starting a research project. Let's see what data already exists, what hypothesis, what new experiments are already in progress or planned. Literature research is why scientific papers usually include a long list of references. I count reading up on the current scientific literature as "research". I do that when I'm able to read the papers. (If not I have to fall back on trusted science communicators.)

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

You will often hear the phrase "do your own research" or, "I am doing my own research" bandied about.

But does anybody actually do their own research?

I don’t do all of my own research, nor do I know anybody who does. Science (and academia more generally) has become increasingly interdisciplinary as it has become increasingly diverse and specialized. Many of the conferences I go to are attended not only by scientists of different fields but often historians, mathematicians, even philosophers. Take climate science. This is something I’ve looked into at great length from journals to proceedings to monographs to datasets and code. I’ve also spent a decent amount of time talking with those who specialize in a few of the areas that are at the core of climate science (e.g., paleoclimatology, atmospheric sciences, solar physics, etc.), mostly because they have offices nearby and I can. My interest had been (and when I have time, continues to be) mostly about the physics and mathematics more broadly relevant to complex systems, as well as the statistical methods used to analyze various types of datasets in climate science. Those that I’ve talked with have forgotten more than I will ever know, and not one of them is qualified to speak about more than a handful of topics with the kind of specialist knowledge required.
So we work in groups. And climate science has nothing on particle physics, where experiments have huge teams of people that include many who barely or even never meet, as well as physicists and other scientists whose areas of knowledge are so different that they don’t know the basics of much of the subject matter relevant to a particular experiment.
But this kind of research is much more about advancing some field or other than it is about researching a topic for personal reasons.

Who on RF is doing their own research, and how?

For me personally, how I “do my own research” depends greatly on the topic. If I know very little about it, I will tend not to begin with journals but rather with textbooks, edited volumes, monographs, etc., at least enough to get a feel for the jargon, the technical knowledge expected of those whose familiarity is at least graduate level. I can usually ask around if I need to, but seldom choose to bother people like this.
More frequently I don’t need to bother with this step, and can proceed directly to the literature, going to more educational materials only when needed. I have access to a large number of academic and scientific databases, but since google scholar allows one to automatically access articles via institutional and/or library access from the search engine results, I mainly use google scholar for searches and the databases just to access the journals. Other than google scholar, I mainly use ScienceDirect, WileyOnline, SpringerLink, APS, arXiv, SAGE, and sometimes academic search premier or proquest. For non-scientific topics (and sometimes for research in scientific fields far from my own) I may also use JSTOR and similar databases.

 

[stvdv]

But does anybody actually do their own research?

I do, when it's something I deem important

As far as I can tell, when people say they are doing their own research, what they actually mean is that they do a Google search or hop on Youtube, and then read a couple of websites or watch a video that confirms what they already know.

Google does not count as "my own research"

Who on RF is doing their own research, and how?

I do

Important to me is Spirituality, I do not Google for that. For this only my own research counts

 

[Mock Turtle]

As mentioned by others, only as far as to try to find as much accurate information there is on any particular topic, which is daunting given that usually we are often not educated and/or trained as to assess such so as to pick out the most relevant from that not so much, but we have to use what we have. At least I was doing this before the internet came along so perhaps can recognise the pitfalls of only doing such via the internet. And the internet has given access to the views of actual people and their experiences along with much else, so many gains along with the problems of disinformation and such.

Most of us just don't have the commitment and/or time to do proper research - given that this is rather ground-level and often ground-breaking stuff - and hence our research is nearly always second-hand at best and often via the popularizers, like in psychology for example.

Perhaps, like some here, I have read some of the research material that is available (not so much though), but also like most, I don't have the access necessary so often required for such material.

 

[exchemist]

You will often hear the phrase "do your own research" or, "I am doing my own research" bandied about.

But does anybody actually do their own research?

Are COVID skeptics who tell us to "do your own research" actually conducting their own clinical trials of vaccines, or doing wide ranging epidemiological studies?

Are people who talk about "doing [their] own research" concerning climate change actually researching climate data on their own? Are they trekking to the poles to learn about Artic or Antarctic ice levels?

As far as I can tell, when people say they are doing their own research, what they actually mean is that they do a Google search or hop on Youtube, and then read a couple of websites or watch a video that confirms what they already know.

Am I missing something here?

Who on RF is doing their own research, and how?

This post seems to misunderstand what is meant by "research". Research just means investigation. It does not have to mean people in white coats in laboratories. Plenty of scholarship is done in libraries and that is just as much research as experimental science.

In the present context, doing one's own research means looking stuff up for oneself and doing some appropriate cross-checking of sources, that's all.

 

[Erebus]

If my time at university taught me anything, it's that research mainly consists of frantically searching for even the most loosely relevant quotes for the sake of padding out your bibliography.

In all seriousness, watching a youtube video or doing a Google search probably does qualify as research if we take the broadest possible definition. You're searching for facts and information after all. A more relevant question in my opinion is whether or not that research is sufficient and this is where things get a bit trickier. Which sources are you using? Are those sources reliable? What sources did your sources use? Is this a topic that can reasonably understood by a layman?

If we take Covid as an example, there are some elements that can be understood by somebody with little knowledge of epidemiology. A Google search could tell you that Covid can be transmitted by coughing near somebody. From that, you can ascertain that wearing a mask and staying away from other people if you have a cough will help to reduce the odds of you spreading Covid. You don't need specialised knowledge or to actively participate in clinical trials for that.

Unfortunately, this is also where the issue of which sources you use comes into play. It's not difficult to find misinformation about Covid (or for that matter, just about any topic you care to read about). If you intend to do your own research, it would be wise to start by listening to the people who actually are engaged in the stricter definitions of research.

Put simply: Yes, the people who Google a topic can be said to be doing their own research. However, that doesn't mean they're doing it well.

 

[Kooky]

That’s a valid point. I am no longer involved in research. At least for now. I switched professions. Thus, I rely on experts. My point was that I am well acquainted with scientific standards when it comes to interpretation of data, which encourages me to not be presumptive.

Oh, I got out of academia before I even could get in properly. I just know a bunch of people who used to work there, and read about the experiences of people who still do. So take whatever I say with the appropriate amount of salt or spice or your choice.

My point is that not only do scientific standards vary wildly between different academic fields, how they are being applied and in what form and by which method can be even more ideosyncratic to those particular areas of research.

To illustrate my point, not too long ago I read an opinion piece from a historian; he talked about the differences between the approaches of historians and political scientists to historical data, and whose takeaway was that even when evaluating the same data points, the two fields tend to come away with very different conclusions simply based on how they traditionally approach data and how they contextualize it within their theoretical frameworks.

A historian would be highly skeptical of their data set's validity, accuracy, and completeness, assume them to be contingent on a host of unknown variables, and therefore be very reluctant to generalize at all, while a political scientists would see the formulation of generalized hypotheses based on that data set as the entire point of the exercise. And so the two would arrive at very different conclusions based on the exact same data, for no other reason than the unspoken assumptions and practices about the data they are working from.

(This is, of course, assuming that none of the people involved had any particular axe to grind or pet theory of their own to advance, which, from what I know of academia, is an already extremely optimistic assumption to make.)

I'll try to see if I can dig it up again.

 

[Kooky]

If my time at university taught me anything, it's that research mainly consists of frantically searching for even the most loosely relevant quotes for the sake of padding out your bibliography.

Sure, in that case, there's really no difference between Flat Earth and the Germ theory of diseases. They were, after all, both devised by men long dead and none of us has conducted any experiments to confirm either of them.

In practice, of course, I've yet to see anybody subscribe to that level of epistemic nihilism.

In all seriousness, watching a youtube video or doing a Google search probably does qualify as research if we take the broadest possible definition. You're searching for facts and information after all. A more relevant question in my opinion is whether or not that research is sufficient and this is where things get a bit trickier. Which sources are you using? Are those sources reliable? What sources did your sources use? Is this a topic that can reasonably understood by a layman?

Supported by personal observations I gathered throughout my long time on the Internet, I'm going to put forth the hypothesis that the overwhelming majority of people who find sources that confirm their beliefs are very much convinced that they have sufficient knowledge to evaluate these sources as accurate and reliable.

And even if they are not, they will still perform as if they are.
As in - a massive portion of RF alone is dedicated to people with little or no specialized knowledge in the fields of science, philosophy, politics or even theology passionately argueing topics they, by all accounts, have a rather uncertain grasp of. I am including myself in this, by the way.

 

[Revoltingest]

But probably the Atheists are asleep still

It's Saturday.
We sleep in on Sunday too.

The OP fails to understand that "research" can be
a variety of investigation kinds, ranging from physical
experimentation to merely searching already available
information. Each way can be appropriate, depending
upon what is being researched for what purpose.

The irony is that posters who make pronouncements
about "research" for the purpose of finding fault in
others are often guilty of making bad claims because
they do no research at all. They just state what they
believe, feeling that their certainty of belief is sufficient.

 

[Kooky]

I do, when it's something I deem important

What scientific studies have you conducted so far?