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Variables, Indicators, and Data

The Measurement Problem in Macropolitical Research

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 January 2016

J. David Singer
J. David Singer*
Affiliation:
University of Michigan
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Extract

One of the more debilitating digressions in the evolution of the scientific enterprise is the controversy over the relative importance of models and data. Time and again, in every discipline from archaeology to zoology, the issue has reappeared with sufficient force to engage scholarly attention and to generate reams of rhetoric. In the social sciences, as in the biological and physical sciences, we have expended considerable energies on the data versus model (some would say “theory”) emphasis, usually to the detriment of scientific advancement.

Type
Research Article
Information
Social Science History , Volume 6 , Issue 2 , Spring 1982 , pp. 181 - 217
Copyright
Copyright © Social Science History Association 1982 

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