Gerald Bracey thought that after devoting the March and April columns to various kinds of "trouble" with research, he was done with it. But he had yet to encounter a December 2003 publication from the U.S. Department of Education (ED) titled Identifying and Implementing Educational Practices Supported by Rigorous Evidence: A User Friendly Guide. This guide, while certainly user-friendly, comes as close as anything ever seen in nearly 40 years in the field to establishing an orthodoxy. ED now speaks ex cathedra. In "The Trouble with Research, Part 2," Bracey wrote: "There are at least three problems with holding up randomized experiments as the ideal for educational researchers to strive toward." First, we research sentient and volitional beings; second, we have a tough time generalizing across sites; and third, "idealizing the randomized experiment . . . defines science as method." He quoted eminent scientists emphasizing the openness of science to all forms of inquiry. Yet in its guide ED exalts the randomized field study to the detriment of all other designs. And it insults educational researchers in the process. The following are appropriate principles that relate to questions to be asked, not methods to be followed. Principles of scientific research issued by the National Research Council, which apply to any field, including education include: (1) Pose significant questions that can be investigated empirically. (2) Link research to relevant theory so that, over the long term, scientific inquiry can generate theories that can offer stable explanations of phenomena that generalize beyond the particular. (3) Use methods that permit direct investigation of the question. (4) Provide a coherent and explicit chain of reasoning, based on what is known and what is observed, that leads from evidence to theory and back again. (5) Replicate and generalize across studies. (6) Disclose research to encourage professional scrutiny and critique. Such ongoing, collaborative, and public discussion and evaluation is a sign of a healthy scientific enterprise. These are appropriate principles that relate to questions to be asked, not methods to be followed. Principles 3 and 5 seem especially difficult for educational research.