[fhdsgbbcaA]

A very accomplished older professor once told me in grad school that “research” was a process of first intuiting patterns, and then “searching” for further examples of said pattern, and then “re-searching” until you had statistical confirmation.

I very much agree.

[dotsam]

You don't keep searching until a point of "statistical confirmation". This implies you have arrived at an infallible truth. Instead you look for ways you could be wrong, and try to correct any errors you find.

For instance, if you guess 'all swans are white', you don't ever get "statistical confirmation" that your guess was right. When you eventually see a black swan, you find out you were wrong. Then it's time to come up with a new theory.