  An important part of Peirce’s full conception of scientific method is what he called the “economics (or: economy) of research.” The idea is that, because research is difficult, research labor-time is valuable and should not be wasted.  Both in the creation of hypotheses to be tested and in the experiments chosen to test these hypotheses, we should act so as to get the very most cognitive bang for the buck, so to say. The object is to proceed at every stage so as to maximize the reduction in indeterminacy of our beliefs. Peirce had an elaborate, mathematical theory of some aspects of the economy of research, and he published several complex papers on this topic. The following section of the present article contains further information on Peirce’s notion of the economy of research.