A paragraph from the archive (Fugard, 2020, p. 525–6):
“Theories in social science are underdetermined by evidence. They are produced by people who have biases and differing values, so two theorists may interpret the same evidence in different ways. Quantitative research is no exception since researchers have to choose what to measure and how to model it. For non-experimental data, many causal models are mathematically equivalent, so assumptions beyond the data are required (Pearl, 1995). Although there are criteria for preferring one theory over another, such as accuracy, simplicity, and scope, applying them is not always straightforward, even in natural sciences (Kuhn, 1977).”
References
Fugard, A. (2020). Should trans people be postmodernist in the streets but positivist in the spreadsheets? A reply to Sullivan. International Journal of Social Research Methodology, 23, 525–531.
Kuhn, T. S. (1977). Objectivity, value judgment, and theory choice. In The essential tension: Selected studies in scientific tradition and change (pp. 320–339). The University of Chicago Press.
Pearl, J. (1995). Causal diagrams for empirical research. Biometrika, 82(4), 669–688.