Page 23 - Becoming Metric Wise

12 Becoming Metric-Wise

why publish research results? Is it for the benefit of humanity, out of curi-
osity, to increase one’s social standing, to have an attractive and respected
occupation, or in pursuit of recognition? We do not try to answer these
questions as the answers are highly personal. Some may even do research
in the secret hope of becoming famous like Einstein. However, getting
rich is rarely a motivation for doing academic research.
Whatever one’s field of inquiry one always has to deal with the “prob-
lem choice” the issue of choosing “good” research problems among a
large amount of possibly interesting ones. Which criteria should one use
to solve this question? Probably there is no general answer and being able
to choose an interesting and soluble problem is just one of the character-
istics that differentiates great scientists from good scientists.
Science is commonly viewed as an activity that leads to the accumula-
tion of knowledge. Its main aim is to improve the knowledge of human-
ity by using scientific methods. The scientific method seeks to explain the
events of nature in a logical and in most cases reproducible way (lab
experiments must be reproducible but, e.g., the Big Bang is not). The use
of such methods distinguishes a scientific approach from, for instance, a
religious one, as supernatural explanations are never accepted in science.
Science can be described as a systematic endeavor to build and
organize knowledge. Yet, performing scientific investigations differs in
an essential way from following a recipe. It requires intelligence, imagina-
tion, and creativity. Research implies an inquiry process, including a
problem statement, consideration of the significance of the problem,
statement of the study objectives, research design, a clear and precise
methodology, information about the reliability and validity of the
results, appropriate data analysis, as well as a clear and logical presentation
(Hernon & Schwartz, 2002).
Scientific investigations can be subdivided into different types. One
distinction is between formal and empirical sciences. Formal sciences are
not based on observations, but on logic and a set of axioms from which
other statements (theorems) are deduced. The most important formal
sciences are logic and mathematics, but theoretical computer science and
formal linguistics are formal sciences as well. Most sciences are empirical
sciences, including natural sciences, social sciences, and the humanities.
While natural sciences study the material world and natural phenomena,
the social sciences and the humanities investigate human behavior and
societies. Being a scientist in the natural sciences usually leads to formu-
lating testable explanations and predictions about the universe, followed