Abstract
In the last chapter scientific theories were portrayed as consisting of structures of interrelated generalisations. Can we seriously aspire to such theories in the social realm? An obvious initial objection is that social reality is simply much too complicated to succumb to such analysis. Surely the complex processes of social development will not lend themselves easily to exceptionless generalisations of the form, ‘Whenever A, then always B’.
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Notes
See I. Hacking, The Logic of Statistical Inference (Cambridge University Press, 1965), especially Chapter VII, for a critique of the standard theory of statistical testing.
L. Kish, ‘Some Statistical Problems in Research Design’, American Sociological Review, Vol. XXIV (1959), is helpful on this point and on a number of related issues.
W. Salmon (with R. Jeffrey and J. Greeno), Statistical Explanation and Statistical Relevance (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1971); also W. Salmon, ‘Theoretical Explanation’, in S. Körner (ed.), Explanation (Basil Blackwell, 1975).
See J. H. Fetzer, ‘Statistical Probabilities: Single Case Propensities vs. Long-Run Frequencies’, in W. Leinfellner and E. Köhler (eds.), Developments in the Methodology of Social Science (D. Reidel, 1974).
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© 1978 David Papineau
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Papineau, D. (1978). Causes and Statistics. In: For Science in the Social Sciences. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-09583-4_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-09583-4_4
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