Is the word "unknown" that scientists use in their research a treasure?

[asd2791]

The truth is that scientists frequently use the term “unknown” in their research, and I thought to myself: This phrase can give you a glimpse into the most important problems facing any research.

For the experiment, I searched for the phrase “unknown” contained in a relatively new discovery: the glymphatic system, and I easily found a set of the most important questions facing this discovery, and I think the answer to them will open great horizons in this field, and these are:

 

1- whether sleep timing promotes glymphatic function remains unknown.

2- However, the relative contribution of each clearance system and their compensatory effects in delaying the pathological process of Alzheimer's disease (AD) are currently unknown.

3- the effect of chronic stress on the glymphatic function and its underlying mechanism remains largely unknown.

4- whether the glymphatic system serves as a potential therapeutic target for white matter injury and cognitive decline during hypoperfusion remains unknown.

 

It is possible to try searching for the phrase “unknown” with another problem such as Alzheimer’s and much more results will appear. Collecting these unknown problems gives researchers focused ideas about research that will be of great importance. This is my view. What is your view?

[CharonY]

47 minutes ago, asd2791 said:

It is possible to try searching for the phrase “unknown” with another problem such as Alzheimer’s and much more results will appear. Collecting these unknown problems gives researchers focused ideas about research that will be of great importance. This is my view. What is your view?

I am not entirely sure what you are getting at, to be honest. Researchers working in a particular field read up on what is known and identify thereby knowledge gaps. Ultimately, there is virtually an unlimited number of things that remain unknown but usually researchers focus on particular unknowns which are extension of parts that are known (or being researched). Many unknowns will pan out to be irrelevant, for example.

[Phi for All]

Perhaps "unknown" is used more in popular science writings than in actual research. I've noticed a heavy-handed use of "unknown", "mystery", and "baffled" when it comes to pop-sci writing. I think non-scientists are drawn by the treasure-hunter aspect, that this is something nobody has discovered and since actual scientists don't know, maybe a talented amateur could try? Or it could be simpler than that, that it's boring when everything is all figured out already.

[CharonY]

18 minutes ago, Phi for All said:

Perhaps "unknown" is used more in popular science writings than in actual research.

I think unknown is commonly used to re-iterate aspects that are under investigations. I often use this the highlight the specific aspect that I want to illuminate more in the manuscript (but then I am a fairly boring writer). So you often see a structure such as:

"while the association between x and y is well documented, the underlying mechanism  is still unknown/remains elusive. Here, we provide evidence that z plays an important role by ..."

I agree that "mystery" and "baffled" is rarely used, if at all.  

Actually what I might think OP is getting at is compiling these unknowns for folks that are not well read in a field. The big issue I see here is that it misses out on context that are clear to folks in the field (who are the target audience). Generally speaking, big picture reviews are better sources for that purpose rather than taking snippets (which is a rather ineffective way to read science IMO).

[Genady]

I often see, "not fully understood."

[asd2791]

14 hours ago, Genady said:

I often see, "not fully understood."

In the following link, I will search for studies in which the word “autism” came in the title, and the phrase “unknown” in the research texts, and this is the link:

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=%28Autism%5BTitle%5D%29+AND+%28unknown%5BText+Word%5D%29

We got 1,046 results.

1- In the next step, these results must be sifted to find out what is related to autism, and what is not related to autism.
2- Then it is necessary to know what remains “unknown”, because some mechanisms are “unknown” at the time of the scientific study, but after a while they become known.
3- Merge the repeater.

Thus, with the previous steps, we have collected the most important problems related to "autism", which need focus from researchers, and solving them may be the key to eliminating the problem of autism.

[Genady]

52 minutes ago, asd2791 said:

Thus, with the previous steps, we have collected the most important problems related to "autism", which need focus from researchers, and solving them may be the key to eliminating the problem of autism.

I don't see any rationale for this statement. But why wouldn't you test your hypothesis on an historical data? Take several research areas. For each, run your suggested process for papers up to say year 2010. Compare your finding with actual developments after 2010. Do they correlate?

[CharonY]

Again researchers are those writing those papers, they do not need a stripped list of unknowns... they are already working on it.