The Dangers of Following Trends in Research: Sparsity and Other Examples of Hammers in Search of Nails

Abstract

Trends, they are not only for the fashion industry after all. Within the engineering and computer science research communities as well, we periodically observe the phenomenon, see how certain methods suddenly start receiving particular attention, and sometimes, even though they emerge as an attractive solution for a given set of problems, they tend to become a hammer looking for new nails. At first, using a new method on old problems is the natural and reasonable way to proceed. There have been remarkable successes achieved through the adoption of a tool from another field or a new way of looking at old problems that brings new insights and solutions.