There's a lot of that around, I was reminded, when I was hit by dumb research twice in one day. First, a telephone call from a chap doing research for an insurance company. To start: Do I have a computer? Yes. Do I have access to the Internet? Yes. Do I use the Internet to buy anything? Yes.

So far so good. Then the stupidity. Do I use the Internet to buy life insurance? No, I told the caller, I have all the insurance I want. I have absolutely no interest in more insurance. That didn't stop him. Do I use the Internet to get quotes on life insurance? No. I reminded him that I had no further interest in life insurance. Undaunted, he went on to list a series of sites with life-insurance information and asked, one-by-one if I used any of these sites for getting life-insurance information. My answer that I had no interest in life insurance didn't fit in any box.

Then came the personal questions. Did I have any children living at home? No. Did I have any children living at home under the age of five? I repeated that I had no children of any age or any description living at home. But he had to fill out boxes for different age ranges.

On that very same day, I received a mail-in questionnaire concerned with my health. Each question was followed by a series of boxes I could check for the benefit of somebody's computer-input device. One question: Did I take any prescription drugs? There was no provision for a simple "No." Instead, there followed a list of drugs I could check. There was no way for me to respond that I took no drugs.

The next question: Did I engage in aerobic activities? There was no box for "Yes." Instead, there was a list of sports I could check, but not my sport: racquetball.

Now, please understand. I'm very much in favor of research. Some managers assume, rightly, that they will be better able to design products, serve customers and build profits if they can get a better understanding of what customers really want today and what they will want tomorrow.

But if they turn the research over to an outfit that uses stupid researchers-or if the research outfit demands that its researchers abandon intelligence-then the manager buying that research is engaging in self-delusion. It is certainly true that the best-run companies use market research. But not all available research is best run.