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By Geoffrey Hart
Previously published as: Hart, G. 2026. Learning humility can improve your research. https://worldts.com/english-writing/512/index.html
One of the great gifts of a PhD program is that it teaches you to quickly learn whatever new thing you need to understand before you can complete your research. This creates independence: you don’t have to rely on your thesis advisors for explaining every new thing you must learn. This both frees you from having to wait for someone else to teach you new skills and lets you teach this independence to future PhD students who you’ll be advising. Unfortunately, your growing ability to rapidly learn new things can lead to hubris (an inappropriate sense that you’re capable of anything), and this can blind you to the limitations of your knowledge. Specifically, it can lead you to forget that understanding something doesn’t mean that you have mastered that subject—or even that you understand it sufficiently well that you have no need for assistance from true experts. (Working with other subject-matter experts is an essential aspect of any complex field of research, which is why most journal manuscripts have multiple authors.) Consider three examples:
Most scientists take at least one course in basic experimental design and another in statistical analysis. These courses teach the basic skills required to conduct research that is sufficiently well designed that you can correctly analyze the data to produce valid conclusions. But professional statisticians earn a 3- or 4-year degree to acquire basic expertise in experimental design and data analysis, and spend many additional years of post-graduate learning to fully master these subjects. You won’t achieve similar mastery just by studying the user manual for the R software.
Computer programmers learn to develop reliable computational algorithms and design carefully debugged software through academic programs that require 2, 3, or more years of intense, highly focused study, often supplemented by post-graduate study. Just because you have read and understood the instruction manual for a programming language does not give you a similar level of expertise. You won’t acquire that expertise without years of intense study. Understand your limits and their consequences. Any errors you make will enter the literature, potentially misleading other researchers for years before those errors are discovered. Particularly when you expect many others to use your software, it’s essential to have an expert review it before you use it to support your research.
During your undergraduate and graduate education, you’ll learn basic skill in a range of fields (e.g., laboratory and field techniques) that are required for your research. Unfortunately, you may spend only an hour or two learning key techniques such as how to use key instruments. As in the two previous examples, expert users of a particular instrument may spend years of intense, repetitive practice under expert supervision while they perfect their skill with that instrument. This is why even the most accomplished researchers rely on field or laboratory technicians for difficult or demanding measurements. An hour of training by your supervisor is often inadequate to give you comparable skills; it may also lead to the passing on of erroneous techniques to future generations. The same warning applies to equipment: even if you master the equipment used by a technique, it takes a large amount of practice to gain expertise in the technique.
The lesson of these examples is that we must all learn the limits of our knowledge, and admit to ourselves when we lack sufficient expertise in a subject. It’s always better to work with an expert rather than trying to develop the expertise on your own. After all, some day you’ll be managing your own research program, while teaching undergraduate students and mentoring graduate students. That work generally consumes all your available time, leaving little time and energy to develop expertise in new skills. You’ll almost certainly find that your time is better spent on your research and that working with experts in other subjects will both reduce the burden on your time and increase the value of your research.
Palmer (2023) provides additional details on why it’s better to learn to recognize the limits of your personal knowledge and rely on the expertise of others when that knowledge and skill lies outside the scope of your true expertise.
Palmer, J. 2023. Engaged in collaborative research? Try a touch of intellectual humility. Nature Career Feature 2 October 2023.
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