I could bet that Chris,Mike,Stephen,Paul,Bill,John,and Scott(the -out-of-office 
reply  dude) never run a pilot study but there was a time when advisors and 
research supervisors would always recommend  to "run a pilot" before 
undertaking some research,thesis,or dissertation.As  a matter of fact Murray 
Sidman in a work titled Tactics in Scientific Research seemed to have 
recommended doing pilot studies.Although there are many reasons given to 
running a pilot,such as methodologicaland other issues,it does appear that the 
procedure  was frowned upon.
I think that the major criticism was that a pilot study was still a valid 
experiment-so in some sense one was performing two experiments.The other 
criticism was probably philosophical: entering research with preliminary 
projected results is really not cool from a scientific perspective.
One thing I would say about the animal pilot studies-it tells us which animals 
are likely
to die and that is a no no for statistical analysis.Just curious what would 
have happened if Milgram and Rosenhan(Tipsters' favorite punching bag) had run 
a pilot.
In a theoretical psychology state of mind.

Michael "omnicentric" Sylvester,PhD
Daytona Beach,Florida
Daytona Beach,Florida

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