METHOD - THE TAIL THAT WANTS TO WAG THE DOG

Kenneth Hansen's methodological disciplining of Fox and Miller's warra nts for discourse is a worthy aspiration, but at what point do we hand over too much to method? This implicit and sometimes explicit expecta tion-that method will yield an objective perspective on any public pol icy discourse-will not be realized The understandable desire to overco me observer bias will be forever unfulfilled in the social sciences. B iases, backgrounds, socialization processes, educational experiences, personal histories, and so forth can be acknowledged and dealt with bu t not transcended. To claim that one actually occupies a bias-free pla tform (by virtue of one's methods) is an overbearing claim indeed, and one that cannot be backed up.