27 July 2014
When you seek an answer to a research question, do you head for sources that are the easiest to use or give the quickest answers? (What might we call that? The sin of immediate gratification?)
When you find a source that gives you an explicit answer to your question—especially when it's what you've been hoping to find—do you grab it and run with it, without critical analysis? (For certain, that can be the sin of self-delusion!)
When your efforts fail to turn up the direct, plain-as-the-nose-on-your-face evidence that you're hoping to find, are you easily discouraged? Or envy other researchers who seem to have much richer sources for the areas in which they work?
In all sorts of ways, researchers fall into all the classic deadly sins: sloth, gluttony, pride, despair, greed, lust, and boastfulness. Who would think that that poking around in the dead corners of the past could lead a soul into all that!
IMAGE SOURCE: Can Stock Photo (http://www.canstockphoto.com/images-photos/seven-deadly-sins.html#file_view.php?id=4598904 : downloaded 28 June 2014), "The top 7 deadly sins of quality," csp4598904, by ragsac; used under license.