HISTORY VERSUS SCIENCE - THE EVOLUTIONARY SOLUTION

History matters because time and place matter and because of path-depe ndence. Hence only idiographic and not nomothetic statements are possi ble according to some historical sociologists. Others accuse the forme r of having abandoned science. It is not sufficiently appreciated that in understanding the role of both history and necessity, evolutionary theory has solved this problem. Moreover, methods available for infer ring what is uniquely related to what, having come via the same path, and for testing hypotheses controlling for the possibly confounding ef fects of common histories should be of interest to sociologists on bot h sides of the history versus science divide.