Abstract

RAMIREZ, Ignacio Méndez. Método científico, aspectos epistemológicos y metodológicos para el uso de la estadística. SaberEs [online]. 2012, vol.4, n.1, pp.00-00. ISSN 1852-4418.

Any research work supports its own epistemic frame or support. In applied research areas such as Biology, Agronomy, Medicine and others, that frame is assumed in a tacit way. Usually, it is erroneously supported either in positivistic philosophy or logic empiricism. The use of such frame renders research inflexible, even if pretending to be objective and rational. Modern philosophers unanimously reject such philosophic frame. They consider that research is not totally objective, that there are terms of the research that cannot be totally justified in a rational and objective way. In this article a short discussion on these epistemic topics is presented. Both, the concept of causality and methodological considerations are introduced in order to study relationships postulated as causal; particularly, the elimination of alternative explanations, such as the confusion factors. Research was driven within four methodological procedures: homogenization of the study units, random allocation of the variants that represent the proposed causes, blocking of groups of units, and the use of statistical models, such as covariance analysis that consider the simultaneous occurrence of several explicative factors.

Keywords : Objectivity; Methodology; Statistics; Population; Epistemology.

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