There Is No Hope in Doing Perfect Research
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Teacher’s Name
Class Name/Period
Date (January 31, 2013)
There is no hope of doing perfect research (Griffiths, 1998, p97). Do you agree? Griffiths (1998, p97) contends that there is no hope of doing perfect research. There is need for one to get the correct meaning of the word research in order to agree or differ with this opinion. The word research as explained by the Oxford English Dictionary means “the systematic investigation into and study of materials and sources in order to establish facts and reach new conclusions.” It can also be defined as a guarded and careful investigation with an aim of unearthing and interpreting up-to-date knowledge. A perfect research would be viewed as a research whose outcome is beyond reproach. That is, the knowledge arising from such research is proven and that there is nothing to be further discovered. In agreeing with Griffiths, I am also of the conviction that there is little, if at all any prospect of conducting perfect research for various reasons. Because human beings are imperfect in nature, there can be no reason at all to conclude that an imperfect being can come up with perfect knowledge. Also, with perfect research, the prospects of a good life would be bleak. From refrigerators running on environmentally unfriendly refrigerants to black and white televisions, use of abacus instead of laptop computers, the era of candles and windmills to the use of electricity and the list is endless. With perfect research, no room for improvement would be allowed, knowledge would be narrow, and life as we know it would be very strenuous for mortals. A standard example that substantiates the assertion that “there is no hope of doing perfect research” is a high school research I once did on the mechanical explanation of gravitation. These explanations attempted to illustrate gravitational action by means of simple mechanical processes, like pressure forces resulting from pushes, in the absence of any action at a
Teacher’s Name
Class Name/Period
Date (January 31, 2013)
There is no hope of doing perfect research (Griffiths, 1998, p97). Do you agree? Griffiths (1998, p97) contends that there is no hope of doing perfect research. There is need for one to get the correct meaning of the word research in order to agree or differ with this opinion. The word research as explained by the Oxford English Dictionary means “the systematic investigation into and study of materials and sources in order to establish facts and reach new conclusions.” It can also be defined as a guarded and careful investigation with an aim of unearthing and interpreting up-to-date knowledge. A perfect research would be viewed as a research whose outcome is beyond reproach. That is, the knowledge arising from such research is proven and that there is nothing to be further discovered. In agreeing with Griffiths, I am also of the conviction that there is little, if at all any prospect of conducting perfect research for various reasons. Because human beings are imperfect in nature, there can be no reason at all to conclude that an imperfect being can come up with perfect knowledge. Also, with perfect research, the prospects of a good life would be bleak. From refrigerators running on environmentally unfriendly refrigerants to black and white televisions, use of abacus instead of laptop computers, the era of candles and windmills to the use of electricity and the list is endless. With perfect research, no room for improvement would be allowed, knowledge would be narrow, and life as we know it would be very strenuous for mortals. A standard example that substantiates the assertion that “there is no hope of doing perfect research” is a high school research I once did on the mechanical explanation of gravitation. These explanations attempted to illustrate gravitational action by means of simple mechanical processes, like pressure forces resulting from pushes, in the absence of any action at a
Cited: Griffiths, Morwenna. Educational Research for Social Justice: Getting Off the Fence. Buckingham [England: Open University Press, 1998. Print. Ladyman, James. Understanding Philosophy of Science. New York: Routledge, 2002. page nr. Print. Mills, William J. Exploring Polar Frontiers: A Historical Encyclopedia. Santa Barbara, Calif: ABC-CLIO, 2003. Print. “Research.” Oxford English Dictionaries. New ed. 2009. Print.