A seemingly simple task: Design a Scientific study/research project (ignore the significantly important factor of getting the funding, which will be a different thread topic). Assume that a reasonable amount of money is available; you are doing this project alone but with advice and input from colleagues, some money is available for a few assistants and technicians. Links below for some basics.
General:
https://explorable.com/research-designs
Medicine Based Studies:
http://www.cebm.net/study-designs/
Cognitive Psychology:
http://cognitivepsychology.wikidot.c...search-methods
You should note a few things before embarking on so arduous a task. First and foremost, you have to actually know a great deal about the subject matter you wish to study/research. Anecdote: when in grad school I frequently discussed research efforts with fellow students and one remarked that his advisor told him that he needed to spend “at least a few months in the library reading up on his subject before coming up with his thesis project”.
Some general advice that may not be reflected in the above links learned from experience:
Precisely circumscribe the limits of the study. (Sometimes the lack of adequate funding forces you into this, which is useful, but always in hindsight).
Persistent convolutions within the study/research path is normal. Numerous changes and deviations in the basic premises and hypothesis and methods should be understood to occur.
Understand that numerous roadblocks, from administrative to the practical will unendingly crop up (e.g. we have no laboratory space that weekend, that equipment is unavailable at this institution, or that instrument is taken for the next few months, or do have the means of dealing with the potential hazardous waste generated, etc.)
You will need some expense nerd Mathematics professor to generate and check all your equations and some statistical expert to “massage your data” (a too common expression that leads to numerous problems in itself).
You will need to produce two abstracts and presentations about the effort for scientific conferences and one paper for a peer-reviewed journal. If lucky you may get a small article/letter in
Nature or
Science.
There are about 105 more little tidbits I could add but I must circumscribe the limits of this OP.
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Suggested topics to design a study/research project from (or pick one out of your ass):
Cord (rounded) laces for footwear last longer and stay tied better (tighter and duration) than flat (non-rounded) laces for a variety of lace material.
Adding an aspirin to the bottom of the hole when transplanting young tomato sprouts makes them grow better and survive the “shock” of transplanting and produce better tomatoes. (Don’t laugh, I was just told this neat trick by a master gardener).
Women with large breasts have more enjoyable orgasms than women with small breasts*.
Drug X produces a measurable and statistically significant better reduction in back pain than Drug Y. Drug Y being previously and statistically proven no better than the placebo effect, according to two independent published studies.
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I, of course, really don’t expect anyone to do this. The OP is just to outline and help illustrate how quite literally tortuous a route it is to fully understand, formulate, quantify and then execute a research study**- Even a very simple one with supposed simple parameters. So the next time you read about, “according to this study published in X, you should be drinking two gallons of wine a day for the health benefits” you will understand the gritty nature of the research. This also means that, most likely, you personally do not have the expertise to give an accurate or useful critique on the research. Stated bluntly: Shut the **** Up about stuff you have no knowledge of or expertise in. Politely the point being to be circumspect about comments and subject matter outside of your knowledge base. This is aside from exercising poor judgment in commenting on a scientific study reported in the main stream media - Because the majority of Journalists have no more intelligence and critical thinking skills than a newt (another research project?).
*No doubt BTM has already conducted some research in this area.
** And without going into the added difficulties of research between soft sciences and hard sciences.
Last edited by Zeno; 06-15-2017 at 06:22 PM.
Reason: Typo, wording