Dear Mauricio, David, Luke, Adam, Gunnar, Ken and others,

Design research has a literature with a chequered history. Very little of it will stand up to scrutiny from critique within its own fields or using the critical positions of other fields. This is a serious difficulty for a subject that crosses disciplines.

There are two concerns. 

The first is simplest - that the way the existential subject matter relating to design has been  conceptualised and theorised about  is unhelpful  or simply wrong. In other words, this is like having a theory about the constitution of the moon as it being made of green cheese and then having built up a huge theoretical literature about exactly which kind of gorgonzola, roquefort and stilton each part of the moon (design) is made.
I'm suggesting that this is a real concern and that a huge amount of the theory we take for granted is not well thought through and in some cases appears seriously unhelpful and erroneous when looked at carefully. I know that David, Gunnar, Ken and others have already come to this conclusion about  various core parts of design theory.

The second concern is perhaps more serious - that insufficient critical thinking is being put into identifying and correcting these errors. Ken has mentioned the master-apprentice model.  The defect of the master-apprentice model  is the propagation of stupidity and false beliefs if the master is wrong and the apprentice is too lazy to  do the necessary  critical thinking to identify errors and create new theories  that correct them, or instead adopts a convenient mixture that blurs the understanding to the point that clarity and accuracy of understanding  is lost. Evidence of this effect of the master-apprentice way of thinking  (including studio learning and over-revering previous designers and researchers ) is evident in how old and quite superficial concepts form the literature are viewed uncritically as gospel.

Many of the ideas in the design research literature now  regarded as established concepts were created as speculative, underjustified soundbites rather than well reasoned theory. The intention of the authors of many of these concepts was to try to put something into words in a situation where there was very little empirically-based understanding about design and very little conceptual foundation to build on - so the ideas were built on theoretical quicksand. 

It is problematic that we are trying to fit new research and theory into these old and leaky wineskins.

It is time for a new direction and that requires a new broom and new theory.

To do that requires assuming, for a start, that existing key concepts are wrong and conceiving anew what may be more wholesome, helpful, robust and consistent.

(wow I don't think I've mixed as many metaphors in my life!)

All the best,
Terry