Analysis, History, Science

Some Thoughts About Handling Empirical Data in the Social Sciences

I was recently asked to review some grant applications for several social science research projects of relevance to national security. The applications are interesting and I’ve enjoyed seeing the proposal process from a new perspective. However, I’ve noted a common theme regarding the handling of data that I think is intuitively problematic with respect to theory building given my own interest in epistemology and the robustness of any claims that can be made from our research.

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