Data analysis in the social sciences: what about the details?

Abstract

Historically, statistics seems to have been the primary mode of data analysis in the social sciences. It would appear at this time that we are still, to a large extent, using statistical methods developed prior to the advent of the digital computer and that these are now just transposed bodily onto a digital computer to perform the calculations. In this paper we attempt to demonstrate that there exists a class of techniques more suitably oriented toward the capabilities of the digital computer than are conventional analytic statistical techniques. We maintain that these techniques are capable of considering details in social sciences data, that is, relating the individuals described in the data.