3 Chapter 3 – How Good Questions Lead To Answers
3.1 – Well-Formed Questions and Context
A well-formed question should have well defined terms, unambiguous construction, and clear context. A well-formed question is like the one which we looked at in section 1.3. We need to have each word mean exactly what we intend it to mean, we need to be clear about what the question is referring to, and the question should be unambiguous.
When we ask a question, we should also have a clear context. A “context” is the setting in which a question is asked.
Example – When we find the average of a group of numbers, we need to know what the numbers represent. If the numbers represent test scores, then the context of finding the average is the particular test (quiz? midterm? final exam?).
Example – If we’re doing quality control, we need to know what product or service we’re doing it for. That product or service is the context for the quality control.
3.2 – To Get The Answer, Ask The Right Questions
We’ve all heard reports about how some food or supplement helps some medical condition only to hear, sometimes only a few weeks later, that it’s a waste of money or bad for one’s health. Why does this happen? For the most part, preliminary studies are conducted with small groups and are not rigorous studies. This makes these types of studies vulnerable to inaccurate results. However, these preliminary studies are necessary in order to get some idea of whether the food or supplement might have some benefit. So, when we read about these foods or supplements in advertisements we must ask ourselves if this product has been thoroughly evaluated by an independent team of well trained professionals. Just believing what we’re told without asking good questions is a recipe for disaster. This doesn’t mean that we should reject good scientific evidence, only that we should learn to ask clarifying questions.
As an example, covid-19 vaccines have proven to be one of the biggest scientific and engineering successes in human history. That doesn’t mean there’s no room to question the safety of these vaccines. We can ask questions about the data produced in the preliminary studies for these vaccines, and the follow-up data that resulted. We can also ask a question like “What are the chances that the vaccine will produce some dangerous effect years after it’s administered?” This is a harder question to answer than those about the current effects of the vaccine, but we can break down this question into smaller, easier to answer, questions that together can help us answer the main question.
To do this we think about related events such as how long have vaccines been in use, how have other vaccines played out over time, and how is this vaccine different from other vaccines. Answering these simpler questions we see that vaccines have been in use since at least the late 18th century, they have been enormously successful in eradicating disease, and new techniques and formulations of vaccines,