Regarding Ray Thomas' comment:
> Ann Oakley is talking on Evidence-informed Policy and Practice. But I
> wonder if other people see social policy as uncontrolled experimentation?
> Does not this label imply a social engineering stance?
>
Unfortunately I can't go to the talk and have not seen
the abstract, so I don't know exactly what Ann Oakley's
stance is.
It seems that some people at least think that there ought
to be 'controlled' experimentation in social policy. For
the dangers of relying exclusively on such evidence, see
the article:
How policy informs the evidence
George Davey Smith, Shah Ebrahim, and Stephen Frankel
BMJ 2001; 322: 184-185.
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/322/7280/184
Anne Scott.
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Dept of Social Policy
London School of Economics and Political Science
Houghton Street
London WC2A 2AE
tel: +44 (0)20 7955 6517
fax: +44 (0)20 7955 7415
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