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589 Annals Am. Acad. Pol. & Soc. Sci. 6 (2003)

handle is hein.cow/anamacp0589 and id is 1 raw text is: PREFACE Misleading Evidence and Evidence-Led Policy: Making Social Science More Experimental By LAWRENCE W. SHERMAN Increasing demands by government for evidence-led policy raise the risk that research evidence will mislead government rather than leading to an unbiased conclu- sion. The need for unbiased research conclusions has never been greater, yet few consumers of research understand the statistical biases with which science must always struggle. This article introduces the vol- ume's discussion of those issues with an explanation of the major threats of bias in social science research and a map of the differing scientific opinions on how to deal with those threats. The thesis of the volume is that many of these threats could be reduced by making social sci- ence more experimental. The fact that even experimen- tal evidence contains threats of bias does not alter that claim but merely suggests another: that educated con- sumers of social science may be the best defense against misleading evidence of all kinds. The political fault lines of twenty-first- century social science resemble a map of Reformation Europe: one big division, with countless subdivisions, around obscure issues that inflame great passions. The big division today is between social scientists who define their client as public policy makers-includ- ing voters-versus those who do not. Further divisions abound on each side of this chasm, none of which are consistent with the conven- tional boundaries of Left versus Right ideologi- cal camps. Political debates increasingly feature discussion of evidence of the consequences of public-and especially domestic-policy choices. Whether such evidence leads or mis- leads policy decisions may depend on intelligent consumers understanding the logical distinc- tions rather than ideological divisions in the methods and epistemologies of contemporary social science. This volume offers partial guidance to citi- zens and officials in pursuit of evidence-led Lawrence W Sherman is the Albert M. Greenfield Pro- fessor of Human Relations at the University of Pennsyl- vania, where he is also director of the Fels Institute of Government and its Jerry Lee Center of Criminology. His research focuses on causes a nde ff ects of fgovernmen- tal and civil society strategies to obtain public conpli- ance with law. DOI: 10.1177/0002716203256266 ANNALS, AAPSS, 589, September 2003 6

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