All too often, scientists (and other research minded people) are drawn into a never ending spiral of questions. Answers lead to questions which lead to answers, leading someone to inevitably describe the next line of inquiry and cap off their thoughts with "We need to do experiments to answer these questions."
The problem that usually arises is that no one objects.
Why not? It's easier to let someone go ahead and do their work than it is to stop and think about other things that can be done.
But assuming they've already decided that the questions are worthy of work, it should be easy for them to articulate why those questions need to be answered and why now is a good time to answer them. Is it because there's a key conundrum in your field of specialization? Will the answer tell us something useful about a disease, a key point about cells or disease, or a physical process? On an extremely practical level, will your answer contribute to a publishable paper or getting a grant?
Or, most commonly, will your answer tell you that Gene X amongst 20,000 genes goes up or down because you poked a particular cell the right way? That, too, may be important but you need to state why.
The reality is that not all questions need to be answered, at least not immediately. Unanswered questions can simmer for a little while longer.
