There is no hope of doing perfect research (griffiths, 1998, p97). Do you agree?

There is no hope of doing perfect research

I agree with the subject statement that ‘there is no hope for perfect research’ because we live in an age that perfect research as I understand it remains just an inference made by the concerned researcher. On the onset; research means the systematic investigation into and study of materials and sources in order to establish facts and reach new conclusions. The word perfect means having all the required elements, qualities or characteristics. We have been put to test before in many ways during our existence and inevitably every one of us can agree with me that no two findings are the same, no two persons are the same and no two inferences are the same.

“No two gardens are the same.  No two days are the same in one garden”- is a famous quote by the writer Hugh Johnson [Thomas, 1985, p115]. No two people express the same opinion and thoughts. As  these vary, their ideas and thoughts on perceiving things vary. Research work eventually results in a conclusion by a person on a particular concept and no two researchers conclude the same thing.

I will use two of my dear and research work used to teach me in class in my school days which I was made to believe are gospel truth only to be continually faulted by the present

Mwaniki 2

findings which use well to do technology, equipment and experiments all together. This will be the famous Newton’s Third law of motion and the Pakistan green revolution.

At the time of green revolution in Pakistan chemical fertilizers and insecticides were encouraged among the farmers in various ways based on a continuous series of experiments on productivity of the cereal crops. Subsequent to some years, the properties of soil and the environment were influenced faultily due to application of such chemicals at farmers’ level on the field. Currently, the community of researchers is advocating restricting application of such chemicals on the field and advising the farmers to return back to organic farming. This clearly explains that just because some well-meaning researcher advised on their use and it brought good results at the time doesn’t mean it was perfect because time has effectively made it imperfect now.

Another good example is the Big Bang Theory. I am well versed with it. I am also one of the poor victims who sat in a class room with boring lectures on it. Big Bang theory was the one that I studied in my secondary Physics class in a chapter by name, “Universe”. The Big Bang theory is one of the widely accepted theories that explain about the origin of our universe. According to Big Bang theory, the universe has emerged out of nothing [Karen C. Fox, 2002]. The Big Bang theory has proven that there is an origin for this universe and, before that origin, there existed nothing. Many astronomers, after making exhaustive research work have concluded the same. All of us believe in this concept, till now. However, in the recent years, many researches are formulating hypothesis that stand against this widely accepted Big Bang Theory. According to Big Bang, the universe has originated 13.7 million years ago. The recent researches

Mwaniki 3

by scientists have identified stars in the universe whose ages have been approximated to be older than 13.7 million years [NOAO, Website]. Another research work made by the scientist Roger A Rydin, claims that the general relativity based model proposed by Albert Einstein, which Big Bang took as a foundation for predicting the history of universe itself was wrong[Roger A, 2007]. This shows that the prediction made by Big Bang theory do not hold true. The controversies on Big Bang theory are still continuing and will continue forever. How well then to illustrate how not possible perfect research is?

With these two examples among many like the now infamous Newton’s ‘Third Law of Motion’, are a worth prove that ; There is no hope for perfect research as Griffiths had stated.

Work Cited

1. Roger A Rydin, New Developments: The Big Bang – in Controversy, University of Virginia, 2007
2. Karen C. Fox, The big bang theory: what it is, where it came from, and why it works, John Wiley and Sons, 2002

3.      McGraw-Hill, Dictionary of Scientific & Technical Terms, 6E. New York: McGraw Hill Companies Inc., 2003.

4.      Slavin, Robert E. and Nancy A. Madden, Success for All: research and reform in elementary education. Mahwah: Laurence Earlbaum Associates, 2001.