Science a GoGo's Home Page Forums General Discussion General Science Discussion Forum Researcher or Investigator ?

I have noticed, that scientists are sometimes being called "investigators".
Why not researchers, as before?

es

The guy with dirty hands is the researcher. His boss handing cash flow and politics is the investigator. Of course, we can fiat reverse that to put the nice title on the head that deserves it.

So, are you saying that boss is too honest to call himself researcher?
I doubt it very much.

e s

A "researcher" collects data for the purpose of amassing data, so that it can be analyzed to see if it means anything.

An "investigator" is a subset of researchers, who collects data for the purpose of getting a specific answer to a specific question.

This clears the air a little.
So, the investigator's virtue is to apply knowlege that was discovered by the researcher reseachers, to get timely answer for a specific question or a set of questions.

So, the researcher researcher's virtue is to discover knowlege as general as possible, so that investigator can apply it to the specific question or set of questions.

So, a real scientist must wear both hats

e s