ABSTRACT
Abraham Maslow (1966), writing on the psychology of science, noted that, "If the only tool
you have is a hammer, you tend to treat everything as if it were a nail." The corollary of this
proposition is that sometimes we drive nails, and sometimes we smash windows. The
statistical tools that we use to analyze data each carry with them certain assumptions about the
characteristics of the data. We use these methods so often that we can easily forget these
assumptions. Frequently, we have concentrated so much on teaching how to use these
methods that we may not have made clear the assumptions on which these methods are based,
or we may not even know those assumptions. When the data satisfy these assumptions, then
the analysis that we perform can provide faithful models of the phenomena that we wish to
describe. Otherwise, the analysis may be worthless, or dangerous, and worse yet, we may not
even question our methods. Like a chess player, we must look not only at the piece our
opponent just moved, but also remain aware of the move's strategic implications. We can
easily forget that a method as simple, as commonplace, as seemingly innocuous, as taking the
914 LIEBOVITCH ET AL.