attitudes towards research

An article published by The Guardian about some academic research regarding ducks illustrates a common attitude. The conclusion of the research in question (very briefly put) is that ducks like water. Common sense says that such a thing is obvious, and why would you spend 300000 pounds on such a study? It’s obvious! In reality with science, you can’t just assume, you have to test your theories. They might turn out to be completely wrong. Theories people have don’t always turn out to be correct – one famous example I can think of is the Rutherford gold foil experiment where the “plumb pudding” model of the atom was blown out of the water. The blanket dismissal of such research falls foul of the requirement of critical evaluation in good research.