Asking good questions

(Second of two parts)

Good scientific questions, framed in the context of existing paradigms, should address fundamental issues, whether the research intended is basic or applied. I shall give examples to illustrate. One problem with current aquaculture practices is the feeding of farmed fish with pelleted food containing protein derived from wild-caught fish species. If humans deplete marine ecosystems just to feed farmed fish, then aquaculture cannot be legitimately called “sustainable” and shall only contribute further to the current, global mass-extinction event that humans are already causing. An alternative is to use plant protein as fish food, but the growth of aquacultured fish is retarded when they are fed pellets containing mainly plant protein. A recently published paper describes the adverse effects of feeding plant protein to salmon as well as the mechanisms underlying these effects. But salmon are carnivorous fish and bangus, being more of a herbivore, might be a better candidate for aquaculture using plant-derived protein. This problem presents the opportunity to do research that would address questions concerning the physiological and biochemical differences between carnivorous and herbivorous fishes (which are the products of evolution), as well as being of great potential benefit.

A year or two ago, I received a message reporting that a Filipino had discovered a method for the waterless transport of fish. It was claimed that fish can be induced to go into suspended animation, transported without water, and then revived afterwards. The usual method of transporting live fish in water is very expensive and much of the cost, of course, involves transporting large volumes of water weighing more than the fish themselves. From Internet articles and news media accounts, it appears that the method involves cooling down the fish in a salt solution and transporting them without water at low temperature in oxygen-filled containers. Although it has not been published in the scientific literature, the method is now used commercially and a patent application has been filed. Certainly, cooling down a warm-water, tropical fish such as lapu-lapu would be expected to lower its metabolic rate and reduce its rate of oxygen consumption. Whether (and how much) the metabolic rate drops is relatively straightforward to determine. However, the mechanisms by which change in temperature alters metabolic rates at the cellular level are not completely understood. In fact, an American research group has published high-profile papers claiming they have developed a mechanistic model for temperature effects on metabolism. There are those who consider this claim to be false. Therefore, a study concerning the waterless transport of cold lapu-lapu can potentially yield fundamentally important information that can help resolve a hotly disputed scientific controversy.

Even in the 21st century, there is great value to descriptive natural history, especially in the Philippines where biodiversity is both rich and rapidly disappearing. It is important for biologists to venture out to see what lives where and how much remains of their subject of study. Only by doing so can they directly investigate ecological processes, as well as contribute to species conservation and to habitat restoration. But ecology and its applied offshoot, conservation biology, have become rigorous and highly sophisticated disciplines in which hypothesis testing is like bread to Westerners and rice to Asians. For example, as logging occurs, large, contiguous forests are broken up into smaller fragments. How this affects the number of animal species and their population sizes is considered a good question to ask by ecologists worldwide. Fragmented forests and their edge effects may benefit some species and not others, so given what forest areas and what animal species remain, what should be the goal of conservation efforts in the Philippines? Obviously, basic research in ecology is required to guide conservation efforts in the Philippines. Even in wealthy countries, papers are published that ask the question of how money available for conservation should be spent to maximize benefit. Some of them make use of complex mathematical models that incorporate data concerning species distribution and abundance. These would appear to be relevant questions to ask in a country where funds for conservation are more limited than in wealthy countries.   

In response to the Iloilo student’s question, one researcher suggested that good research should be original. Although this is true, “original” means different things to different people. One could sequence a stretch of DNA from a plant or animal from which DNA has not been extracted and examined before. This would be “original research” in one sense. But in the absence of a good question to ask, would this be good science? Measurement for the sake of measurement falls under the same category: when their students propose to measure something, good mentors ask: “What fundamental scientific question do you want to address?” 

Paraphrasing the philosopher Martin Heidegger, we (humans) are the ones in whom things “come to light.” This is why data by themselves mean nothing. Data have meaning only when considered in the context of paradigms. The formulation of good research questions should be guided by the understanding of paradigms. This is the way of normal science. And when things come to light in those who see things that others don’t, there can be a period of turbulence, a “scientific revolution” leading to the rejection of old paradigms, and their replacement with new ones. 

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Raul Kamantigue Suarez is a professor in the Department of Ecology, Evolution and Marine Biology of the University of California, Santa Barbara, California and an editor of the Journal of Experimental Biology, Cambridge, UK. E-mail him at [email protected].