In Defense of The Scientific Practice of Speculation, Part 2

These days, speculation seems to be almost a dirty word.  There’s good reason for this.  Scientists, especially social scientists (especially psychologists?) are known for drawing conclusions that go way beyond their data.  We tend to be an idealist lot, and we think we have already intuited all there is to know about human nature and are really just conducting these studies and things to confirm our notions (OK – luckily this is not always true… but let’s be honest… “research is me-search” and we are often a liiiiittle more invested in our hypotheses than we should be. I think this is partly a systems issue. But I digress.)

But that's BAD speculation.  And bad science.

However, speculation before the creation of hypotheses I think is essential.  We are altogether too “in the box” these days.  We need to flatten that box into a topological map of psychic life and get some better ideas flowing!  (Kudos if you get the reference.)

And the only way to do that is by being a little bold, a little outlandish, and by being wrong.  Maybe 10,000 times.