If your research only ever proves you right, you’re not researching. You’re decorating.

Looking for evidence and looking for confirmation are different activities that feel identical from inside. Once you hold a conclusion, the search narrows by itself and you stop early whenever something agrees with you, which is why the process always appears to succeed. What comes out is a decorated version of what went in. Honest inquiry has to include the possibility of being wrong.

Before you look anything up, write down what would change your mind. Read the strongest version of the opposing case rather than the weakest one. If nothing you found surprised you, you are probably not finished.