4 ms·

Personally I still go on Wikipedia deep dives where you end up going from link to link for hours. I think the author is entirely incorrect with that quote, the

Personally I still go on Wikipedia deep dives where you end up going from link to link for hours. I think the author is entirely incorrect with that quote, the whole idea of leasure research is that there are no rules, some will go ask an LLM, others will go read 'foundational text' while others will just browse Wikipedia.

mmooss 2y ago
If that's what you like to do, of course that's fine. If we are going to talk with each other about what we like to do, we need to agree on meaning. In my thinking, the definition of research is to find truth. As ultimate solutions to that goal, Wikipedia and LLM output lack sufficient accuracy and lack verifiability. Many find them useful as bibliographic tools that point us to accurate, verifiable sources. Also, research requires looking at the actual evidence - the primary sources; that's where the truth is, that's the foundation of the scientific method. Secondary sources filter the truth through someone else's interpretation, but for amateur researchers that may be all that's realistic - traveling to archives, building or using complex equipment is not realistic. Still, Wikipedia and (almost all) LLMs are tertiary or higher order sources: they are a combination of secondary or higher order sources - Wikipedia doesn't allow citing primary sources as far as I know (which would be necessary for Wikipedia to be a secondary source); LLM input is mostly secondary or higher order sources. I don't object if you call reading Wikipedia, 'research'. I don't at all object to you doing what you value. But we are talking about two different things.
- awongh 2y ago
  > In my thinking, the definition of research is to find truth > the primary sources; that's where the truth is I mentioned this elsewhere on the thread, but I also feel like the most influential primary sources are less important than secondary sources- if you read Marx, the social and political circumstances of his ideas are in the context of an industrial economy and just don't apply in the same way anymore. You can draw your own conclusions directly from what's written, but what's the point of that? I feel like it's more useful to engage with those ideas keeping in mind all of the thought and history that's happened since- in that case you would wait a pretty long time to work backwards until you read the original.
  - mmooss 2y ago
    If you are researching economics, then Marx is a secondary (or higher order) source. The econmomic data used by Marx is primary. If you are researching Marx the person or Marx's ideas, then [edit: Marx's writings would be primary sources, and then] what would you think of someone who only read others talking about Marx, but didn't read Marx's actual writings? It wouldn't make much sense for anything called 'research'.
    - awongh 2y ago
      > The econmomic data used by Marx is primary Literally picking through tables of all economic data for the last century... shocked pikachu meme not sure what that would gain you....
      - mmooss 2y ago
        Well, that's how actual research is done - that's what people do. It defines research, it's how they write all those (research-based) books and journal articles. That's scholarship - science, social science, humanities, etc. That's why Darwin travelled all the way to the Galapagos Islands - he identified a place to do primary resesarch on the questions he was investigating. Journalists also - they look at the actual evidence and turn it into something coherent and cohesive for others to understand; the location in the byline/dateline shows where they went - that is, that if they wrote about Odessa, the dateline should show if they actually went to Odessa and saw it for themself. Back to research: If you mean it's impractical for many people, that's often true. Some topics require less expertise, expense, and time: for example, tracking local bird populations. But those real natural scientists, the amateur researchers who get published, that's what they are doing. Pretty amazing! If you don't want to do it, that's fine; few do. If you want to read secondary sources on a topic - wonderful (but read good ones based on primary sources; only accept what is tied back to actual, hard-won facts - necessary are the footnotes, which connect the secondary claim to the primary fact). If you want to read tertiary sources, find quality ones. If you want to read social media, have fun but it's just entertainment - to the extent it's accurate, you can't know unless you already have expertise.
  - 2y ago
- jksflkjl3jk3 2y ago
  > the primary sources; that's where the truth is Why is a primary source a better source for the "truth"? Often secondary sources have distilled the original rough ideas into more refined expressions of the original complex ideas. A secondary source will also have had more chances to catch any mistakes.
  - mmooss 2y ago
    The secondary sources take the primary source facts (if the author is serious and honest) and add someone's subjective perspectives, etc. Those facts are the 'truths'. For more, look up reading on the scientific method and empiricism. I'm not disparaging all secondary sources; I read them too. But there's a reason serious research requires primary sources.
    - BeetleB 2y ago
      I think people are confused by the definitions of primary/secondary sources. As an example, almost all textbooks are actually secondary sources. The primary source may be a journal article. And yes, often, those secondary sources are far superior than the primary sources. Insisting on reading all those journal articles as opposed to a good textbook is simply indulging in a fetish, IMO.
      - mmooss 2y ago
        > I think people are confused by the definitions of primary/secondary sources. Sorry: Primary - the actual evidence. The actual letter written by Jefferson; the ice core itself, etc. For example, if you are an historian writing about Jefferson, you actually travel to the archive and read Jefferson's letters and look through the other papers, etc. - the actual stuff. Secondary - the journal article, the scholarly book, based on primary sources (without those, it's just nonsense) Tertiary - textbooks, news reports, etc. about the secondary source Higher order - blog posts, social media, etc.: usually they haven't seen the evidence, haven't read the journal article, may have read the news report but often only read another social media post ... > Insisting on reading all those journal articles as opposed to a good textbook is simply indulging in a fetish, IMO. WTF do you know about me or anyone else to judge their choices? Your ignorance of the need for direct knowledge of things shines through. Here, the primary source is me; having no primary source your assertion isn't even secondary, just nonsense. Enjoy 'research' on social media.
- MITSardine 2y ago
  Maybe I'm confused about what you mean by primary and secondary sources, but I think you have to be a little more nuanced; otherwise, it sounds like you're advocating for reinventing the wheel ad vitam aeternam. As opposed to "standing on the shoulders of giants" and all that. For instance, I would consider a literature review a secondary source. It can come to some conclusions as to the credibility of a hypothesis given all this presented evidence (primary sources). This can be very precious work, as it would save a person interested in higher-level topics a great deal of time, and most likely (if the review is any good) be done with more competence than the interested person has (amateur or not). An amateur (or indeed a professional) is more likely to find pertinent information in existing "secondary sources" (which can also be plural) than by trying to comb through a comparatively enormous volume of primary work they are not equipped to interpret and synthesize (or even find). Not just in my lazy opinion, it's indeed the consensus in science that the most recent review/synthesis work is a good starting point to any background information collection. And why not, as a starting point, have a tertiary source point you towards adequate synthetic work. When you type "my topic of interest review" on google scholar and pick the most cited moderately recent review of the topic, are you not in effect relying on a tertiary source?
  - mmooss 2y ago
    I think those are essential things to do and valuable regardless of what else someone does. I do them myself all the time. I think the literature review is an amazing tool - really the best tool for learning, IME - and one that most people in the world (outside the research community) overlook. Here we are talking about research in the science sense; those aren't research. You couldn't publish a literature review as 'research', for example, or get a Ph.D. for one - 'here's my dissertation topic - a lit review of ...'!. There is lots of actual potential research for citizen scientists to do. And if they want to just learn from what's been discovered already, that's great - I certainly do that. I think it's important that people understand that reading a textbook or secondary source isn't scientific research. Confusingly, now that I think of it, if you say 'I researched which EVs have the range we need', people assume you did not do actual research of driving them all. But that's a different meaning for the same word. In your field, is 'research' used differently?

mmooss 2y ago

If that's what you like to do, of course that's fine. If we are going to talk with each other about what we like to do, we need to agree on meaning. In my thinking, the definition of research is to find truth. As ultimate solutions to that goal, Wikipedia and LLM output lack sufficient accuracy and lack verifiability. Many find them useful as bibliographic tools that point us to accurate, verifiable sources. Also, research requires looking at the actual evidence - the primary sources; that's where the truth is, that's the foundation of the scientific method. Secondary sources filter the truth through someone else's interpretation, but for amateur researchers that may be all that's realistic - traveling to archives, building or using complex equipment is not realistic. Still, Wikipedia and (almost all) LLMs are tertiary or higher order sources: they are a combination of secondary or higher order sources - Wikipedia doesn't allow citing primary sources as far as I know (which would be necessary for Wikipedia to be a secondary source); LLM input is mostly secondary or higher order sources. I don't object if you call reading Wikipedia, 'research'. I don't at all object to you doing what you value. But we are talking about two different things.

awongh 2y ago
> In my thinking, the definition of research is to find truth > the primary sources; that's where the truth is I mentioned this elsewhere on the thread, but I also feel like the most influential primary sources are less important than secondary sources- if you read Marx, the social and political circumstances of his ideas are in the context of an industrial economy and just don't apply in the same way anymore. You can draw your own conclusions directly from what's written, but what's the point of that? I feel like it's more useful to engage with those ideas keeping in mind all of the thought and history that's happened since- in that case you would wait a pretty long time to work backwards until you read the original.
- mmooss 2y ago
  If you are researching economics, then Marx is a secondary (or higher order) source. The econmomic data used by Marx is primary. If you are researching Marx the person or Marx's ideas, then [edit: Marx's writings would be primary sources, and then] what would you think of someone who only read others talking about Marx, but didn't read Marx's actual writings? It wouldn't make much sense for anything called 'research'.
  - awongh 2y ago
    > The econmomic data used by Marx is primary Literally picking through tables of all economic data for the last century... shocked pikachu meme not sure what that would gain you....
    - mmooss 2y ago
      Well, that's how actual research is done - that's what people do. It defines research, it's how they write all those (research-based) books and journal articles. That's scholarship - science, social science, humanities, etc. That's why Darwin travelled all the way to the Galapagos Islands - he identified a place to do primary resesarch on the questions he was investigating. Journalists also - they look at the actual evidence and turn it into something coherent and cohesive for others to understand; the location in the byline/dateline shows where they went - that is, that if they wrote about Odessa, the dateline should show if they actually went to Odessa and saw it for themself. Back to research: If you mean it's impractical for many people, that's often true. Some topics require less expertise, expense, and time: for example, tracking local bird populations. But those real natural scientists, the amateur researchers who get published, that's what they are doing. Pretty amazing! If you don't want to do it, that's fine; few do. If you want to read secondary sources on a topic - wonderful (but read good ones based on primary sources; only accept what is tied back to actual, hard-won facts - necessary are the footnotes, which connect the secondary claim to the primary fact). If you want to read tertiary sources, find quality ones. If you want to read social media, have fun but it's just entertainment - to the extent it's accurate, you can't know unless you already have expertise.
- 2y ago
jksflkjl3jk3 2y ago
> the primary sources; that's where the truth is Why is a primary source a better source for the "truth"? Often secondary sources have distilled the original rough ideas into more refined expressions of the original complex ideas. A secondary source will also have had more chances to catch any mistakes.
- mmooss 2y ago
  The secondary sources take the primary source facts (if the author is serious and honest) and add someone's subjective perspectives, etc. Those facts are the 'truths'. For more, look up reading on the scientific method and empiricism. I'm not disparaging all secondary sources; I read them too. But there's a reason serious research requires primary sources.
  - BeetleB 2y ago
    I think people are confused by the definitions of primary/secondary sources. As an example, almost all textbooks are actually secondary sources. The primary source may be a journal article. And yes, often, those secondary sources are far superior than the primary sources. Insisting on reading all those journal articles as opposed to a good textbook is simply indulging in a fetish, IMO.
    - mmooss 2y ago
      > I think people are confused by the definitions of primary/secondary sources. Sorry: Primary - the actual evidence. The actual letter written by Jefferson; the ice core itself, etc. For example, if you are an historian writing about Jefferson, you actually travel to the archive and read Jefferson's letters and look through the other papers, etc. - the actual stuff. Secondary - the journal article, the scholarly book, based on primary sources (without those, it's just nonsense) Tertiary - textbooks, news reports, etc. about the secondary source Higher order - blog posts, social media, etc.: usually they haven't seen the evidence, haven't read the journal article, may have read the news report but often only read another social media post ... > Insisting on reading all those journal articles as opposed to a good textbook is simply indulging in a fetish, IMO. WTF do you know about me or anyone else to judge their choices? Your ignorance of the need for direct knowledge of things shines through. Here, the primary source is me; having no primary source your assertion isn't even secondary, just nonsense. Enjoy 'research' on social media.
MITSardine 2y ago
Maybe I'm confused about what you mean by primary and secondary sources, but I think you have to be a little more nuanced; otherwise, it sounds like you're advocating for reinventing the wheel ad vitam aeternam. As opposed to "standing on the shoulders of giants" and all that. For instance, I would consider a literature review a secondary source. It can come to some conclusions as to the credibility of a hypothesis given all this presented evidence (primary sources). This can be very precious work, as it would save a person interested in higher-level topics a great deal of time, and most likely (if the review is any good) be done with more competence than the interested person has (amateur or not). An amateur (or indeed a professional) is more likely to find pertinent information in existing "secondary sources" (which can also be plural) than by trying to comb through a comparatively enormous volume of primary work they are not equipped to interpret and synthesize (or even find). Not just in my lazy opinion, it's indeed the consensus in science that the most recent review/synthesis work is a good starting point to any background information collection. And why not, as a starting point, have a tertiary source point you towards adequate synthetic work. When you type "my topic of interest review" on google scholar and pick the most cited moderately recent review of the topic, are you not in effect relying on a tertiary source?
- mmooss 2y ago
  I think those are essential things to do and valuable regardless of what else someone does. I do them myself all the time. I think the literature review is an amazing tool - really the best tool for learning, IME - and one that most people in the world (outside the research community) overlook. Here we are talking about research in the science sense; those aren't research. You couldn't publish a literature review as 'research', for example, or get a Ph.D. for one - 'here's my dissertation topic - a lit review of ...'!. There is lots of actual potential research for citizen scientists to do. And if they want to just learn from what's been discovered already, that's great - I certainly do that. I think it's important that people understand that reading a textbook or secondary source isn't scientific research. Confusingly, now that I think of it, if you say 'I researched which EVs have the range we need', people assume you did not do actual research of driving them all. But that's a different meaning for the same word. In your field, is 'research' used differently?