Research Plan

In which Rat formalizes the method

Good time of day, humans!

Despite still not having received a Nobel Prize (not even in economics), Rat doesn’t give up on science.

Caseotropic – «cheese-oriented», from Latin caseus ‘cheese’ and Greek τροπή (tropē) ‘turn’. (Well, I made up this word yesterday.)

CWCID: inspired by the following paragraph from eugyppius (source):

…to which I responded with the following grumpy comment:

All this «scenario analysis» doesn’t really create new knowledge. It goes on and on, until no team member has any serious objections anymore, which typically happens in one of the following three situations (or a combination thereof):

• a deadline is coming and a «deliverable» must be presented;

• all meaning has been weathered out of the text (or should we call it «textual product»?);

• the «textual product» starts sounding plausible; although plausibility is of course subjective, this is where it becomes propaganda.

Compared to that, Rat is in a much better situation. All his conjectures can be tested, and there are no contingencies or «scenarios» – if cheese is found, it is to be snatched. Empirical knowledge is acquired, and at some point rats might even find out that the probability of finding cheese in the kitchen is somewhat higher than in the attic.