I really enjoyed reading this world view in Nature about the importance of exploratory research in the social sciences by @balazsaczel.bsky.social and am wondering what people think. Do you generally agree with his point? 🧪@natureportfolio.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/d41... - ThreadSky

meharpist.bsky.social • 94 days ago

I really enjoyed reading this world view in Nature about the importance of exploratory research in the social sciences by @balazsaczel.bsky.social and am wondering what people think. Do you generally agree with his point? 🧪@natureportfolio.bsky.social https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-03826-z

Comments

stefaniebrassen.bsky.social•94 days ago

An important discussion I wish to see more of in neuroscience. Do we really know so much about the brain to be so specific in our hypotheses and leave non-preregistered findings mostly uncommented? Plus the risk of adjusting analyses to fit. Confirmation/replication yes,but more room for exploration

tontrug.bsky.social•91 days ago

Frankly, I rarely see a difference between #confirmation and #exploration (and thus consider almost everything as exploration) not only in neuroscience.

stefanherzog.bsky.social•94 days ago

https://bsky.app/profile/stefanherzog.bsky.social/post/3lbz55sbxqs2u

phillbjones.bsky.social•94 days ago

It's not just limited to social science. IMHO, there's a bit of a damaging myth that research starts at hypothesis. It encourages researchers to do exploratory work and position it as confirmatory. This breaks the assumptions of statistical models leading to bad conclusions. #researchintegrity

thmeyer.bsky.social•92 days ago

📌

roguehci.bsky.social•94 days ago

Yes. So much yes. In order to expand our theoretical space, we need to go off script more often and just try things (granted, you don't mess around and adhere to good practice).

dsquintana.bsky.social•94 days ago

Yeah, very much agree with this. Both hypothesis testing and hypotheses generation are valuable. Give me a well-performed exploratory study over a poorly performed hypothesis testing study any day