Reddit mentions of Designing Social Inquiry: Scientific Inference in Qualitative Research

I'm a Political Methodologist; I'm happy to give you some help. It would be useful to know what your mathematical background is, and what sort of things you're interested in doing. You have to understand, to me, this question is a little bit like "I'm interested in American Politics; suggest an introductory text, please." There's a huge variety of stuff going on here, it's hard to know where to start.

Do you want to be able to read statistics wrt PoliSci? Or are you interested in figuring out how everything works, so that you can create / replicate?

If you want something very undergraduate centric, my undergrad research methods class used the Kellstedt and Whitten book. It was fine, but obviously very rudimentary. It will get you to understand some of the big picture type stuff, as well as some of the simple statistical nuts and bolts you'd want to understand. This class also used the everpresent King, Keohane and Verba text, which is oriented around qualitative work, but Gary King is the foremost quantitative methodologist in the discipline, so it's still pretty good (and "qualitative" certainly doesn't mean "non-rigorous" -- it's cited a lot because it really delves into deeply into research design). That said, I don't remember a whole lot about this class anymore, and I haven't looked in these books for ages. My feeling is that both of these books will probably be close to what you're looking for -- they're oriented around intuition and identifying the main issues in inference in the social sciences, without getting too bogged down in all of the math.

That said, if you have more math background, I'd suggest Mostly Harmless Econometrics which is often used as a first year graduate level quant methods book. It's absolutely fantastic, but it isn't easy if you don't have the math background. It may also assume some preexisting rudimentary probability or statistical knowledge. I'd also suggest the Morgan and Winship. These two books are structured more around causal inference, which is a subtle reframing of the whole "statistics in the social sciences".

For more nuts and bolts econometrics, Baby Wooldridge is one of the standards. I think it's pretty often used in undergrad econ classes.

In general, though, statistics is statistics, so if you want to learn it, find an appropriate level of statistics/econometrics book.

Take a look at those books in your library/online/etc and see if any of them are what you're looking for.

>You can't argue this because you'd never know for sure. It would be like throwing someone in jail because they have a gene that makes them likely to commit a crime.

Depends on epistemological strength. Surely a gene isn't nearly predictive enough, but Minority Report-style perfect information might be.

>That's nothing more than a correlation. It's not an experiment at all

Your qualm here is with the social sciences. You can't always conduct "experiments" in social science (economics, political science, sociology, etc.), but you can establish statistically significant correlations and causal inference. You're welcome to read up on social science methodology. I'm not saying that Dubner and Levitt are right, per se, but either abortion has some effect on crime or it does not; whether we can know that answer is irrelevant to the question's moral significance, which is grounded in some fact about the world.

>abortion is outright immoral by the definition of "maximization of well-being,"

This leads to debates among consequentialists about how to handle Parfit's repugnant conclusion. Very sharp of you to pick up on, and Harris doesn't give a good answer in the book. As for my personal views, I think I have a few reasonable responses but this conversation has gone on long enough!

You've yet to provide a single piece of evidence for anything you have stated. I cannot go through all your points as they are assertions rather than supported statements. Let's try a few and then call it a day. What I am going to do is offer a citation EVERY SINGLE TIME. If you do not reply in kind, I will use this as evidence that you are talking shite.

1. "Something that works due to equal or superior forces, does not work with tiny inferior forces. The belief that it can work with tiny inferior forces, is an ideological belief not based on logic."
   Absolute shit. Total and utter. I honestly don't know where you are getting this from. Please read "How the Weak Win Wars".
   
   
2. "This is a silly thing to say. It's like saying "who cares what they think. They're crazy anyway."
   nationalist (this is the majority of terrorist movements);
   No it is not. You're wrong. Flat out wrong."
   No, I didn't say "who cares what they think" You are the one offering a one-size-fits-all explanation that refuses to take their claims seriously. I am the one saying that different groups have different goals. On trends in the movement, while it is true that nationalist and ethnic goals are declining, they still account for most terrorist movements in the world. See this RAND report's conclusions. Or are RAND not as wise as you? (also note, note that ideology is treated as a political motivator, not inherently terroristic - i.e. used the way I define it; not you).
   
   3."No it is false, naive, and dangerous to glorify them by claiming their ideals are complex and motivations are all different. They do these things because they want to kill people, people that they emotionally hate. They are irrational. They are motivated by various ideologies but they all have one common ideology: That destroying property and killing innocent random people within the area of your enemy, will result in social change."
   You really seem to be struggling with the differences between means and ends. Just because a group targets civilians it does not mean the group's goals are to target civilians. It might mean that they do this because they think it will meet other goals. By your logic, the US army only goes to war because it likes to blow stuff up; not because blowing some stuff up might have political effects. Read Clausewitz. On terrorists and extreme violence read Pape
   
   
   
3. "I don't think you have read any literature at all. You're an ignorant person who wants to oversimplify terrorists to "oh they have all sorts of reasons" and "oh they don't have beliefs or anything, they can be just anyone." you don't make any rational or coherent logical sense. You're just blurting out things that don't follow logically."
   How is saying that terrorist groups have various goals and various beliefs "oversimplify" the issue. It adds complexity. You are the one offering a monocausal explanation. I never said they didn't have beliefs. I am saying they have different beliefs. Oh, and by the way, saying "it's complex" does not mean "it's random" or "we can't understand." It simply means simple answers may not work. On the various goals of terrorists, see Hoffman.
   
   
4. "As they should. Duh. Why are you even mentioning this? Except to act like a little prick who wants to insult people? Grow up you little child. This is no way to talk to someone especially when you clearly show how ignorant you are on the subject."
   I was referring to things that you said political scientists ignored. I was telling you they didn't. So don't get your nose out of bent when I contradict you. Admittedly my tone is not nice. But then neither is yours.
   
   
5. "Yes analysts. And those analysts agree with me, not you."
   You haven't mentioned a single person by name. Everyone I have mentioned is a peer-reviewed political scientist. Show me your sources. I hope you are smart enough to know that some sources are less credible than others.
   
   
6. "(which incidentally, is rarely necessary to be able to form a coherent analysis).
   And how does that make any logical sense? Absolutely it is necessary to make accurate analysis which you clearly failed to do."
   You said that you cannot study terrorism without clearance. I said you can as (a) there are tons of cases one can study that are now declassified, (b) many viable methods don't require clearance (e.g. interviews), and (c) unless you are trying to explain a specific operation or attack you do not necessarily need every single bit of fine-grained information. Your question determines your method. On designing research please see KKV or Brady & Collier
   
   
7. "But learning begins with admitting you are wrong and/or ignorant
   Yeah so admit that you are wrong and ignorant."
   I have been wrong on many things, many times. It took me some time to become smart enough to figure out when to let go of ideas. It is not easy for most people. But buddy, don't fucking fool yourself, you are not winning this argument.
   
   
8. "You're the one trying to justify terrorism here and oversimplifying the issue into "oh we cannot claim they are motivated by any ideology. they are just motivated by what they are motivated by." Kind of insane bullshit that I don't know what blog you read it from but it's clearly incoherent."
   I am not trying to justify anything. I am trying to explain it. Studying lung cancer doesn't mean you are in favor of cancer, or against cigarette companies for that matter. It simply means trying to explain it. I'm not the one with blinkers on here.
   "It is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles; if you do not know your enemies but do know yourself, you will win one and lose one; if you do not know your enemies nor yourself, you will be imperiled in every single battle." - Sun Tzu.
   
   If you don't respond with proper citations don't expect a reply. But, whatever you do don't chalk it up as an intellectual win.
   
   EDIT: for formatting, before I gave up.