Understanding Social Science Studies on the Family

Abstract

Opinions vary as to the relative importance of Roger Bacon’s Opus majus composed in the 1200s, the invention of the printing press by Johannes Gutenberg around 1440, and Isaac Newton’s 1687 work, Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, but few would disagree that the scientific revolution ushered in by these and works by scores of other scientists, inventors, and engineers has transformed the world. Material and intellectual progress has placed science on the highest pedestal of modern society. It is only natural that the social sciences would covet the credibility of the more objective experimental sciences. Even with the two most statistically powerful and well-controlled protocols for human evaluation—the randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial and the prospective epidemiology study—a high degree of expertise and care is essential to avoid inadvertently introducing bias into the study design. Unfortunately, it is extremely difficult to avoid doing this in social science studies.