ABSTRACT
This text and its author subscribe to the importance of sensitivity to data and of the wedding of humanitarian impulse to scientific rigor. Therefore, it seems appropriate to discuss my conception of the role of statistics in the overall research process. This section assumes familiarity with the general principles of research methodology. It also assumes some acquaintance with the use of statistics, especially significance tests, in research. If this latter is a poor assumption, the reader is urged to delay reading this section until after reading Section 1.2.
