The National Cancer Institute wants researchers to start asking non-obvious questions.
I suppose that’s good, because the NIH’s very conservative funding process is one reason why so many researchers focus on the obvious questions. On the other hand, it’s not so clear that answering non-obvious questions lead to more insight than answering obvious questions. The question can be obvious or non-obvious and still generate that key to scientific progress, the unexpected answer.
The Finch and Pea 