Research is an iterative process

Researchers have found that software developers become more productive when listening to banjo music.

You read the title of an article that promises a new truth. Exciting. The article describes how researchers have conducted experiments and confirmed that they can see an increase in productivity when exposing poor software developers to banjo music. The newspaper states this as an absolute truth. What they are forgetting is that research is an iterative process and absolute truths do not exist (neither do silver bullets).

Everyone that has ever worked with research knows these truths are just hypothesis. There might be experiments that confirm the hypothesis, but that does not make it absolutely true. Science has taught us that the earth revolves around the sun. Before we had the tools and knowledge to reach these conclusions, everyone believed the sun revolved around the earth. Copernicus was the first to bring heliocentrism to wider audience, challenging the current truth. As the catholic church fought against Copernicus’ theories, they were not widely adopted until after his death. The church literally preached an absolute truth that was different from what Copernicus was trying to scientifically prove.

When you approach researchers that work in the same field as the published paper you often get shades of gray. Comments like that is old research proven wrong years ago or it is not as simple as they stated in that newspaper are very common. As a parent of small children I fall into this trap too often, trying to find out what is best for kids to eat, wear and learn. There is no simple answer, even though we spend a lot of efforts looking for one and there is tons of research on the topic.

Optimize for learning

Research is not about finding the absolute truth. Research is optimized for learning. Create a hypothesis, try to prove that hypothesis and then share your conclusions. Your hypothesis is not considered proven until other people, independently, have come up with the same results. That is why any serious research has to be published, methods and proofs shared for anyone examine. As we experiment we try to learn as much as possible about the space we are in. We try to design experiments so that they only pick up the right signals, but we are aware that there are many unknowns that might affect the result. There are many different versions of the truth, but you can always learn more about the space. As our knowledge about a space keeps growing we have to keep up with new theories to keep up with the latest version of the truth.

Takeaways

My personal takeaways from working with research and being in an academic space is to stop looking for absolute truths. Be very careful when newspapers write things like researchers have found that or finally research have proven that. These articles are often an oversimplified version of shades of gray.

As an innovation coach I take away the focus on learning and iterating. Keep an open mind in terms of what has to be true. We don’t know what we don’t know, but being aware of this blindness helps us come prepared and helps us challenge what other people take for granted. Just as researchers we should approach the world with open eyes and set out for a journey of discovery. We should maximize for learning when we are working with innovation, not for finding a truth.