ABSTRACT
Most social researchers employ probabitity concepts in their research either explicitly or implicitly whether or not they are aware of it. The chief notable exceptions are those who are proponents of what has come to be called “analytic induction,” a rationale that explicitly excludes certain probability formulations. There is a general failure to recognize the different purposes probability reasoning has served, with the result that critics and defenders of probability often are talking about different things. A probabilistic theory is one that contains at least one highest level proposition that expresses a probability relationship between some classes of the elements referred to by the theory. The reason that such a proposition must be a highest level one is that probability statements can be inferred only from probability statements, so if they appear at all in a theory, they must appear at a highest level.
