More research is needed

You know the question that always comes up after a journal club/critical review of a paper session—‘so where do we go from here?’ and you also know the standard answer—‘more research is needed’. Have you ever thought about why you use that answer? Well, first, it is what we were taught from the moment we first started appraising papers, but, moving past that, could there be other reasons too?

Of course, in many cases, we may actually need to do more research but, in others …