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Research Methodology: The Aims, Practices and Ethics of Science

2017; Lippincott Williams & Wilkins; Volume: 124; Issue: 5 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1213/ane.0000000000001977

1526-7598

David B. Glick,

Biotechnology and Related Fields

Research Methodology presents a distillation of the class notes from the course offered on the subject since 2004 by Professor Peter Pruzan at Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning in India. Pruzan is a professor emeritus in the Department of Management, Politics, and Philosophy at the Copenhagen Business School. As a result, the examples and explanations discussed in the various sections (as mentioned subsequently) come from a wide range of disciplines in both the natural and social sciences. Specific examples from medicine are lacking and are limited to generalities such as, suppose you have a medicine and you want to determine if it is more effective than a previous treatment or no treatment. Honestly, however, that is not an issue because this is not a book about the ins and outs of medical (or any other specific areas of) research; rather, it looks at the philosophical underpinnings of research and science more generally. As I read through it, I thought time and again of the similarity of both the style and content of this book to Douglas Hofstadter’s classic text Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid (Vintage Books, 1980) that I read before going to college and which emphasized the underpinnings of art and science and not just the final results. Although Research Methodology is a much shorter book than Gödel, Escher, Bach, it takes a similar approach to the understanding of science and offers important touch points for young researchers who have been exposed to the hows, but not the whys, of science. The target audience for Research Methodology is clearly young researchers in the natural sciences, although even seasoned investigators would benefit from the insights offered by Professor Pruzan both on the proper framing of scientific questions and the nuances of the rules and social customs that define the scientific community. The book is divided into 9 sections. The first section, Science, provides a brief history of science followed by an analysis of the structural, philosophical, and social constructs that have come to define science. Subsequent sections deal with more traditional topics of interest to researchers in the natural sciences, specifically hypotheses, hypothesis testing, measurements and their errors, the various kinds of experiments (observations versus controlled studies), designing one’s experiment, probability and statistics (with a truly excellent contrast of the Bayesian and frequentist methods), the value and uses of research skills, and, finally, the responsibilities incumbent on the researcher conducting work in the natural or social sciences. Although the sections cover the essentials of research work, it is the deeper questions in each section that separate this text from a simple how-to book for science novices. What are the limitations of science? What distinguishes good from bad science? How is uncertainty best addressed in a given experimental model? How do the differences in Eastern and Western perspectives on religion and moral behavior determine the ethical or unethical character of a given scientific method in a specific place or time? In addition to offering a deeply introspective look at scientific research, Professor Pruzan is able to bring this potentially soporific topic to life through his use of easily appreciated examples from a wide range of disciplines as well as his fast-paced and entertaining prose. The result is a book that covers a great many fundamental topics in research and is also enjoyable reading. For this, Professor Pruzan is to be congratulated. I think Research Methodology should be required reading for every student embarking on a research-oriented career. In addition, even those of us further along in our academic careers can pick up ideas from this book that can improve our approaches to the social and experimental facets of our “more mature” research work. David B. Glick, MD, MBADepartment of Anesthesia & Critical CareUniversity of ChicagoChicago, Illinois[email protected]