Academic research: musings

[Ren Ren]

Old photos are staged a little less than 100%. Probably, we can talk about reportage only with the invention of Kodak mobile cameras.
But old photos can tell a lot about what people wanted to show as important and noteworthy in their value scale. And also to convey ideas about fashion and beauty of those times. If a researcher adheres to a conservative tradition, then photography is for him a part of iconography. I think that everyone present here vividly remembers the lively discussions that turn into heated debates regarding certain ancient graphic images or ancient sculptures. I see no reason why old staged photos should be judged differently than graphics, painting and sculpture. Their objectivity is largely illusory.

[A. G. Maisey]

Ariel, you have asked what we think of your musings.

My opinion must be a non-academic opinion, since I am not now, and never have been an academic, but my short opinion is that , yes, I think you're close enough to reality to be taken seriously.

However, if I consider a matter I go about it in a slightly different way. I try to frame the question I want answered, this might take a long time. When I have the question clear --- or maybe "clear enough" is better --- I then try to identify my objective.

All this takes a very long time, and really, it never stops, its always there niggling away in the back of my mind, and that objective can always be amended as enquiry proceeds.

When I have what I think might be a satisfactory objective I then start to do things that might get to a point where I start to produce what I like to think of as "good ideas". To get to the "good idea" point can take a very long time, it is mostly thinking and with fairly random inputs. In one case it took me around 20 or so years of this before these "good ideas" more or less solidified into something that I thought I might be able to make into a hypothesis.

For me, this is the point where I start to look at supportable evidence that can contribute to the hypothesis. I'm not talking testing and supporting argument here, I'm talking evidence in one form or another that can contribute to, let us say, a story line.

I doubt that I've ever taken things further than that. For me, the hypothesis is sufficient. Others can, if they wish, prove or disprove the hypothesis. I tend to be a little bit dubious about theories, especially if those theories begin to be accepted as truth. You can construct a theory, and by clever argument, you can get a lot of people to accept that theory, but sooner or later the Matchlup/Arbesman effect kicks in, you look back and you find you spent a whole lot time on something that was either not relevant, or straight out wrong.

There are a lot of ways to look at that wasted time, and most of these ways present a much more pleasant outcome than 5 minutes of the half-life of fame.

In my non-academic opinion, I feel that the most important, and also the most difficult thing is to ask a relevant question.

Answers can be pretty easy to construct, relevant questions can be exceedingly difficult to construct.

[Jim McDougall]

Interesting approach to the philosophical perspectives in research.
I think questions are inherent to research, investigation, and study. I am by far no academic, but have always been curious, so questions are always there.

If I may use the 'khanjarli' case, which apparently has prompted this editorial thread, for an example.

The question was simple, asking for help finding an individual actually wearing a khanjarli dagger, distinctive for its ivory lunette pommel, and having a recurved blade common to several Indian dagger forms.

It became readily apparent that the request for this subject matter may have to do with (as often the case) a semantic issue with terms applied to various weapon forms. This seems to have been illustrated in the reference to these type daggers in Egerton, with contradictory classification captions also listed.

Further research in Elgood revealed this was indeed a case of a variation of another dagger form, chilanum, but with the lunette pommel.

It seems that in most cases, writers covering a certain topic like to add illustrations to better convey descriptions and provide imagery that the reader can connect to the text.

The photographic image of a weapon being worn by an individual, just as art work depicting same, is not always 'proof' but does provide some context.
The work of AVB Norman, on rapier and smallsword hilts, is based largely on forms of hilts as found in portraits mostly, relies on the fact that most portraits are painted in a time frame of the individuals life. In these cases, persons posing typically were particular about their personal weapons being used, not someone elses.

In other types of art, Rembrandt for example, Biblical scenes were embellished by weaponry, often exotic, known in the Dutch context of the time these were painted. The information useful is more for the study of the foreign weapons of the time of the painting than the Biblical context.

A great book titled "After the Fact" is about historical detection, and some great examples of what a painting of an American Indian warrior by George Catlin can tell the investigator about the figure posing, and the items they are wearing etc. There are surprising elements revealed, sometimes an influence of another work, and adjustments of embellished ornaments.

I guess we could go on forever with examples and questions, reasons, and all these things related to research, but it comes down to getting evidence, proper evaluation of it, and presenting it accordingly. The idea is to be sure to apprise the reader of what is being shown, and qualify any aspects that might be in question. Do not hesitate to be transparent and show other sides to the material being shown. Let the reader decide which is more viable.

Musings are personal, and not of much use to most others, as everyone has their own, regarded as thoughts and ideas. But nothing wrong with expressing ideas. These are what is good about discussion, objective and unbiased, flowing constructively.

[Bob A]

The question of the value and nature of research, as applied to representative depictions of weapons for example, is more complex than it might appear.

Research, embodying observation leading to formulating a question as a hypothesis, and subsequently devising a method of testing the hypothesis, is a focused and necessarily narrow approach as a tool for expanding knowledge. A body of prior knowledge is implicit in its usage, distilled down from a much broader palette of information and observation: hence "re-search" is derived from "search". Medical research is science; the practice of medicine is aptly called an art.

One can speak of historical research, but this is dependent on possibly fallible and certainly biased information; it lacks the rigor of hard science, and deals with issues and information that is more vague and suspect as one goes further into the past. The farther we depart form that which can be measured and quantified, the farther we are separated from what might be described as "truth" or perhaps "reality."

Mathematics exists as pure abstraction, which nevertheless can map congruencies or corepondences in what we see as "reality," and has in fact been the precursor of the real, as mathematical abstractions have led physical science into the discovery of the hidden realities of the physical world. So-called "pure" mathematics has been found useful as a descriptor of phenomena completely unsuspected or unknown to the mathematician engaged in symbol manipulation for its own sake.

It seems therefore that the scientific method is an exquisite tool for seeking answers to problems, or questions, if one prefers, but a broad and global scope encompassing seemingly unrelated phenomena and discovering implicit patterns, which might ultimately provide scope for research, might better be viewed as "art."

Arts and sciences inform and cross-pollinate each other, and both would appear necessary to the process of discovery; essentially search and research are complementary tools in this endeavor.

Or so my musings would lead me to opine, when considering the musings of others on the topic.

[Ren Ren]

Originally Posted by Bob A

It seems therefore that the scientific method is an exquisite tool for seeking answers to problems, or questions, if one prefers, but a broad and global scope encompassing seemingly unrelated phenomena and discovering implicit patterns, which might ultimately provide scope for research, might better be viewed as "art."

I completely agree!

[A. G. Maisey]

That's a nice statement in support of the scientific method Bob, and I doubt that anybody would want to debate what you have put forward, but I will offer this:-

no hypothesis can be put forward without a question that needs an answer

the question does not come from research, it comes from experience and rational thought

once the hypothesis has been stated, that is when the research begins, and that research might result in a theory

[Ian]

Just a few disconnected thoughts to throw into the pot.

What Ariel and Bob have so succinctly described is the Hypothetico-Deductive (H-D) model of research that was proposed in the 19th C and developed by Carl Popper and others. It stands in opposition to what had gone before, which was essentially an Inductive method. The latter basically consisted of finding as much data as possible about something and then drawing conclusions from those observations. What distinguished the H-D model from the inductive model is the testing of a specific prior hypothesis with the collection of data to test a particular question.

If the data we collect to test the hypothesis (i.e., the question being asked) does not refute it, then the hypothesis stands until such time someone comes along with a better set of data that negate it. Many times investigators are wedded to a certain hypothesis and are reluctant to let it go, even when the data suggest they should. After all, many reputations are built on proposing new hypotheses and defending them against all comers. The famous differences between Einstein and Nils Bohr concerning quantum mechanics, and the uncertain behavior of key components of matter, illustrate how even a great scientist and thinker like Einstein can be wrong and get stuck in old ideas.

Much of what we discuss on the Forums can be classed as inductive reasoning. We show a lot of pictures, draw analogies between different items, and try to construct a story to fit the observations. Many of our discussions raise more questions than they answer. Such questions could be considered the genesis of hypotheses, but we lack the ability to test those ideas in a meaningful manner. Designing a set of actions (experiments) to test an hypothesis effectively can be difficult and in some cases impossible. Bob has already alluded to the difficulties of historical research.

Social scientists (as distinct from physical or biomedical scientists) encounter these problems frequently in their research. Carefully controlled studies with well defined groups are difficult when dealing with ordinary human beings going about their lives. Anthropologists, ethnologists, sociologists, behavioral scientists, etc. have to be creative in designing studies to test their hypotheses. In many ways, their job is harder than physical and biomedical researchers.

Studying the history and use of weapons seems more akin to social sciences than the physical or biomedical sciences, especially when we consider the culture of the populations using these weapons. One of the key elements of understanding the use and place of weapons within a culture necessarily draws on an understanding of ethnography and sociology within the native population. People within those groups rightly get upset with westerners who try to draw conclusions without carefully involving the groups under study. Techniques for obtaining information from such groups does not necessarily involve a structured formal questionnaire, but rather loosely structured interviews with key informants and other members of the community. All communications need to be conducted in a culturally appropriate manner, and so on.

Such techniques are often derided by "hard scientists" as being empirical and poorly controlled, with a high likelihood of bias. There may be some truth to that. However, the types of rigor and control that are used by many physical and biomedical scientists are often not feasible for the social scientist—they can only use the tools they have.

What does this have to do with the question at hand? Mahratt proposed in another thread that one could use old pictures, drawings, and other art works to define who wore, and presumably used, the khanjarli. Jim provided some clues based on historical records for where to look, and we would expect to see some pictorial evidence to support his research. What we have is Jim creating an hypothesis that can be tested by searching for photographic or artistic evidence in support of that.

That's how the H-D method works.

[ariel]

Completely agree.
There are areas where research is straightforward and fully dependable on experimentally- provable data : " let's remove X and see what happens"
Study of weapons cannot employ experiments: it is strictly observational. It is much more tentative and more difficult to conduct.

But the principles of the two are by and large the same: noticing or suspecting something unusual or different, asking is it interesting and/or important, if not,- forgetting it, if yes - asking a question/hypothesis (why? where? when?), collecting material and published information, discussing the results without bias and providing an answer.

Without absorbing and rigorously employing general principles of research or, worse of, without dedicated training in these basic principles, book markets are getting flooded by amateurish publications that are full of errors, i.e. at the best colorful coffee table volumes, and at the worst - sources of misleading information for generations.
The " half-life of information" is measured in years. It is getting shorter, but still long enough to impress tyros and influence even professionals. Regretfully, in all our different areas of interest ( and, occasionally, competence, Alan Maisey and Albert van Zonneveld being an example in Indonesian, a strong group in Filipino, Elgood in Indian, Rivkin in Caucasian etc.), we all know such publications.

[Bob A]

Originally Posted by A. G. Maisey

That's a nice statement in support of the scientific method Bob, and I doubt that anybody would want to debate what you have put forward, but I will offer this:-

no hypothesis can be put forward without a question that needs an answer

the question does not come from research, it comes from experience and rational thought

once the hypothesis has been stated, that is when the research begins, and that research might result in a theory

I absolutely agree, Alan.

I might not have made myself entirely clear, but I attempted to indicate that the more global or oceanic examination, which would correspond to Ian's well-stated concept of induction, is experiential in nature.

Correspondences can be induced, but such induction depends on a broad range of experience ranging over as wide a field of observation as the ability of the observer will allow. This "ability" includes both the capacity of the observer, and the availability and scope of that which is observed.

I think we're talking about the same thing, expressed through different minds and verbal filters.