user45525: I am a biological engineer, and I spend my time creating new technologies. Those who have worked in research will know that demonstrating a nice, real-life application of a new technology is an important step of technological research. I am wondering whether it is OK to ask questions such as:

I have a proof of concept for a new technique that can achieve XXX in context YYY, within the limits of ZZZ, in which biological context could I apply it?

I know that one should in theory create technologies to address a pre-defined problem, but that is not the point of the question. Let's assume, for example, that a competing team came up with an unrelated and better solution for that exact problem, so the problem does not exist anymore and I need to expand the scope of my project.
I see conflicting information on meta and help pages, so here are the pros and cons that I came up with:
CONS

The help page recommends to avoid questions if "every answer is equally valid", which would possibly be the case here - provided that the answers are not scientifically aberrant.
It does sound like "an open-ended, hypothetical question", which the help page also describes as being bad.

PROS
This kind of question meets many criteria of the "guidelines for a great subjective question". Such acceptable questions:

"inspire answers that explain why and how"
"invite sharing experiences over opinions"
"insist that opinion be backed up with facts and references"
"have a constructive, fair, and impartial tone"
"are more than just mindless social fun"

Are such questions acceptable, if the user posts enough technical details to avoid pure speculation?

user27148: I would say that this sort of question is too open-ended for this format - I think you've accurately identified the problems with this sort of question in this format.
I disagree with a lot of the pros you listed: I don't think the answers will be why and how, I think they will be biased towards opinions rather than experiences, I don't think they will be backed up, constructive, etc.
Unfortunately I think it just won't work well here. Also, I've seen a lot of questions like this, maybe yours would be better, but in my experience they usually trend more towards "I know engineering, I have this engineering solution, can this be used for biology?" and it's really laughably bad. It's not the same situation, but https://xkcd.com/793/ from XKCD often applies.

45525: <p>I am a biological engineer, and I spend my time creating new technologies. Those who have worked in research will know that demonstrating a nice, real-life application of a new technology is an important step of technological research. I am wondering whether it is OK to ask questions such as:</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>I have a proof of concept for a new technique that can achieve XXX in context YYY, within the limits of ZZZ, <strong>in which biological context could I apply it</strong>?</p>
</blockquote>

<p>I know that one should in theory create technologies to address a pre-defined problem, but that is not the point of the question. Let's assume, for example, that a competing team came up with an unrelated and better solution for that exact problem, so the problem does not exist anymore and I need to expand the scope of my project.</p>

<p>I see conflicting information on meta and help pages, so here are the pros and cons that I came up with:</p>

<p><strong>CONS</strong></p>

<ul>
<li>The help page recommends to avoid questions if "every answer is equally valid", which would possibly be the case here - provided that the answers are not scientifically aberrant.</li>
<li>It does sound like "an open-ended, hypothetical question", which the help page also describes as being bad.</li>
</ul>

<p><strong>PROS</strong></p>

<p>This kind of question meets many criteria of the "guidelines for a great subjective question". Such acceptable questions:</p>

<ul>
<li>"inspire answers that explain why and how"</li>
<li>"invite sharing experiences over opinions"</li>
<li>"insist that opinion be backed up with facts and references"</li>
<li>"have a constructive, fair, and impartial tone"</li>
<li>"are more than just mindless social fun"</li>
</ul>

<p><strong>Are such questions acceptable, if the user posts enough technical details to avoid pure speculation?</strong></p>
 27148: <p>I would say that this sort of question is too open-ended for this format - I think you've accurately identified the problems with this sort of question in this format.</p>

<p>I disagree with a lot of the pros you listed: I don't think the answers will be why and how, I think they will be biased towards opinions rather than experiences, I don't think they will be backed up, constructive, etc.</p>

<p>Unfortunately I think it just won't work well here. Also, I've seen a lot of questions like this, maybe yours would be better, but in my experience they usually trend more towards "I know engineering, I have this engineering solution, can this be used for biology?" and it's really laughably bad. It's not the same situation, but <a href="https://xkcd.com/793/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://xkcd.com/793/</a> from XKCD often applies.</p>
