Quotes About Research

Stephen Hawking

General sporting magazines, scrabbling madly for dollars in a declining market, had become tools of market research, which again and again told editors to give readers more of what they already had.

I sometimes threw books without indexes to the floor.

History is scholarship. It is also art, and it is literature.

The scholar's greatest weakness: calling procrastination research.

the scholar's greatest weakness: calling hesitation research.

Dr. John Nash Ott had discovered by 1987 that glass, artificial light sources, electricity and electronic systems were having extensive detrimental effects on plants, animals and humans.

Just a few years ago, a graduate student at the University of California, Davis's Department of Ecology and Evolution determined that many species of birds, including juncos, finches, and warblers, have ventriloquial abilities. (Her research focused on a yellow-rumped warbler and a stuffed owl.) Other studies followed, all demonstrating that birds can adjust their "acoustic directionality" in order to beam their alarm calls in chosen directions.

Why was there still no Ebola vaccine after more than 20 outbreaks of the disease since it was discovered in 1976?

Always give more weight to peer-reviewed research than to results announced solely in the media.

Even if we take Nietzsche figuratively (which he would have much preferred anyway), fifty years of research on stress shows that stressors are generally bad for people,3 contributing to depression, anxiety disorders, and heart disease.

But decades of research on public opinion have led to the conclusion that self-interest is a weak predictor of policy preferences.

He showed people the pairs of photographs from each contest with no information about political party, and he asked them to pick which person seemed more competent. He found that the candidate that people judged more competent was the one who actually won the race about two-thirds of the time.

The Weirdest People in the World?"2 The authors pointed out that nearly all research in psychology is conducted on a very small subset of the human population: people from cultures that are Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic (forming the acronym WEIRD). They then reviewed dozens of studies showing that WEIRD people are statistical outliers; they are the least typical, least representative people you could study if you want to make generalizations about human nature.

Concepts like trauma and safety have expanded so far since the 1980s that they are often employed in ways that are no longer grounded in legitimate psychological research. Grossly expanded conceptions of trauma and safety are now used to justify the overprotection of children of all ages

there's a deeper reason so many young psychologists began to study morality from a rationalist perspective, and this was Kohlberg's second great innovation: he used his research to build a scientific justification for a secular liberal moral order.

ProjectImplicit.org

They concluded that most of the bizarre and depressing research findings make perfect sense once you see reasoning as having evolved not to help us find truth but to help us engage in arguments, persuasion, and manipulation in the context of discussions with other people.

The authors pointed out that nearly all research in psychology is conducted on a very small subset of the human population: people from cultures that are Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic (forming the acronym WEIRD).

The Weirdest People in the World?"2 The authors pointed out that nearly all research in psychology is conducted on a very small subset of the human population: people from cultures that are Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic (forming the acronym WEIRD).

Science is a smorgasbord, and Google will guide you to the study that's right for you.

Many political scientists used to assume that people vote selfishly, choosing the candidate or policy that will benefit them the most. But decades of research on public opinion have led to the conclusion that self-interest is a weak predictor of policy preferences.

While many propositions are untrue, in order to be classified as a Great Untruth, an idea must meet three criteria: It contradicts ancient wisdom (ideas found widely in the wisdom literatures of many cultures). It contradicts modern psychological research on well-being. It harms the individuals and communities who embrace it.

Liberals and conservatives actually move further apart when they read about research on whether the death penalty deters crime, or when they rate the quality of arguments made by candidates in a presidential debate, or when they evaluate arguments about affirmative action or gun control.39