Do you think that these are the best solutions for your problem?

Finding The Right Pilot Study Equipment

By Daniel Peterson


In terms of physical abilities, there should have been no way that human beings should be the undisputed dominant species on the planet. Pretty much every single animal of similar mass is physically superior. Even when the comparison is whittled down to just the great apes, humanity is still at a massive disadvantage. An athlete with the strictest training, best genetics, and the finest pharmaceutical enhancement is still going to be at a massive disadvantage when compared to a gorilla or even just a chimp. But if humanity does have one thing going for it, it is its brain. Unlike other animals, human beings are more than capable of abstract thought. They can think. They can learn at a much quicker pace. And one method by which they do that requires a bit of trial and error using pilot study equipment.

A pilot study is very similar to an experiment. Except that its purpose is not find some grand scientific conclusion or confirm some theory. No, its purpose is to work out the kinks in the system. In effect, it is a dress rehearsal for the real thing.

This is because the purpose of a pilot study is not to find some hitherto unknown knowledge. But rather, to smooth out the edges. In short, it is a rehearsal before the curtains are supposed to go up. Mistakes can be made during this phase so as not to be made when the actual experimentation begins.

A concept, science is not completely unified. In fact, there are many different branches to it. It splits of into the social sciences, which generally deal with people, and the natural sciences, which deals with the world around them. Because of the schism, there really is not concrete guidelines as to what sort of equipment should be used. For sure, there will computers and such, because data has to be recorded somewhere. But there will also be equipment used in one discipline that is going to be fairly useless in another.

The most important factor will be the scientists, the people carrying out the experiment. They are the ones who are going to observe and then record those observations. It is vital that they then be objective. The last thing the world needs are experiments being tainted with confirmation bias.

A lot of basic equipment should not be all that hard to find. Anyone can walk into a big box store and buy a bunch of laptops and pens and pads of paper. But certain items like high powered telescopes capable of seeing light years away may prove to be much harder to come by than an average microscope.

The thing to be done in a pilot study is to be objective. To record and analyze data at a small pool of participants. In effect, it is a dry run for the much bigger show that is to take place later, if the pilot program proves to be successful.

They are needed for one simple reason. A lot of time and money goes into research. Sometimes, the methods which a team will come up with will simply not be feasible. So they need to practice first.

The world is hard. But humanity is nothing if not innovative. So it found ways to make it easier.




About the Author:



No comments:

Post a Comment