WEBVTT 00:00:00.720 --> 00:00:05.875 Interestingness and importance are two characteristics sometimes associated 00:00:05.875 --> 00:00:09.624 with high-quality research or high-quality claims. 00:00:09.624 --> 00:00:14.082 But interestingness and importance are not the same and sometimes 00:00:14.082 --> 00:00:18.880 interesting things are not important and important things are not interesting. 00:00:18.880 --> 00:00:20.039 So, what are these concepts and 00:00:20.039 --> 00:00:26.038 how do you evaluate whether an article presents interesting or important claims? 00:00:26.038 --> 00:00:31.200 Interestingness is a concept that is debated currently in the literature 00:00:31.200 --> 00:00:35.662 and our idea of interestingness comes from this article from 1971. 00:00:35.662 --> 00:00:42.000 And I'm not going to talk about that article in detail but briefly, it states that the claim 00:00:42.000 --> 00:00:46.535 is interesting if it denies a prior belief of a person. 00:00:46.535 --> 00:00:52.743 So for example, if I don't believe that there is extraterrestrial life 00:00:52.743 --> 00:00:57.325 and then someone tells me that UFO just landed in front of the university, 00:00:57.325 --> 00:01:03.040 I would find that claim interesting because it denies my prior belief, 00:01:03.040 --> 00:01:05.866 that extraterrestrial life does not exist. 00:01:05.866 --> 00:01:09.115 So this is interestingness, and interestingness typically 00:01:09.120 --> 00:01:13.864 also refers to something that makes us think differently, 00:01:13.864 --> 00:01:20.197 it challenges our prior beliefs, claims that support our prior beliefs 00:01:20.197 --> 00:01:24.904 or claims that are indifferent to our prior beliefs are not interesting. 00:01:24.904 --> 00:01:27.196 So, this is one way to define interestingness, 00:01:27.196 --> 00:01:29.654 how much this challenge is our current thinking? 00:01:29.726 --> 00:01:33.695 Interestingness and importance are two different things and there is 00:01:33.695 --> 00:01:39.402 some debate on, whether interestingness is actually something 00:01:39.402 --> 00:01:45.026 that we should strive for in research or whether we should strive for importance. 00:01:45.026 --> 00:01:51.025 Quite often when you see articles they try to present their findings as interesting 00:01:51.025 --> 00:01:55.651 because if you present interesting findings then that is more likely to get 00:01:55.651 --> 00:02:00.607 attention, and more likely to get others to read your study or read your theory. 00:02:00.879 --> 00:02:04.440 Important things are sometimes boring, we don't want 00:02:04.440 --> 00:02:08.981 to do important things all the time, and for that reason, 00:02:08.981 --> 00:02:13.120 importance has been less of a concern for some researchers. 00:02:13.567 --> 00:02:18.230 So, what is importance then if importance is not the same as interestingness? 00:02:18.230 --> 00:02:22.021 This article from the Academy of Management Journal or Editorial 00:02:22.021 --> 00:02:25.978 states that importance relates to consequences. 00:02:25.978 --> 00:02:31.811 So things, findings, theories that have big consequences 00:02:31.811 --> 00:02:36.519 for society or for individuals are important. 00:02:36.519 --> 00:02:42.226 For example, if we think about the COVID-19 pandemic there are the claim 00:02:42.226 --> 00:02:45.476 or recommendation that we should socially distance, 00:02:45.476 --> 00:02:51.475 it is important because not doing so has big consequences for the society. 00:02:51.475 --> 00:02:55.391 But it is not interesting because it does not challenge our prior beliefs 00:02:55.391 --> 00:02:59.640 and we've heard the recommendation of social distancing quite many times. 00:02:59.640 --> 00:03:03.389 So, importance can mean two different things, 00:03:03.389 --> 00:03:09.639 on the level of a theory or level of claim interestingness can mean relevance and consequences. 00:03:09.639 --> 00:03:14.596 So, if something has consequences, and those consequences 00:03:14.596 --> 00:03:20.845 are relevant for me, then that claim, or theory is important. 00:03:20.845 --> 00:03:22.428 Otherwise, it is not important. 00:03:22.428 --> 00:03:27.011 Another thing that is important is evidence, 00:03:27.040 --> 00:03:34.240 so if we do a trial of a new medication, we find that the medication works, 00:03:34.880 --> 00:03:38.091 that could be an interesting finding and an important finding. 00:03:38.091 --> 00:03:45.759 If we replicate the same study again, we find evidence that the medication works, 00:03:45.759 --> 00:03:50.268 well that is not interesting because we had that evidence already, 00:03:50.268 --> 00:03:55.846 but it is important because we want to know that the first study that studied 00:03:55.846 --> 00:04:00.466 the effectiveness of the medication was not just an analysis error, 00:04:00.466 --> 00:04:05.394 and we also want to know that it was not just that specific population in which 00:04:05.394 --> 00:04:09.760 the medication was useful but it applies more broadly. 00:04:09.760 --> 00:04:15.465 So quite often we have an initial idea, initial piece of evidence which is interesting, 00:04:15.465 --> 00:04:20.887 and then we have still lots of uninteresting but important things to do, 00:04:20.887 --> 00:04:25.751 to know that the claim that was initially made is actually valid, 00:04:25.751 --> 00:04:30.777 not the result of analysis error, or research is an error and not a result 00:04:30.777 --> 00:04:35.840 of simply idiosyncrasies of one particular population or sample.