Overview

Without question, biostatistical analysis has contributed to a slew of amazing medical breakthroughs. Yet it also distorts and deforms the holistic and contingent nature of health and medicine. How is it that biostatistics can both sharpen and weaken our understanding of health and medicine? What is unique about the content of health and medicine that so plainly reveals such distortions and deformities? Exploring these questions entails, first, a full survey of the tools and techniques of biostatistical analysis aiding medical breakthroughs. This survey must then be paired with a probe into the conceptual premises of these tools and techniques and how they refashion and reconstitute the inherently qualitative content of health and medicine in preparation for its quantification. We must grasp the statistical machinations at play, both technical and conceptual, that contrive to fit objects to tools rather than fitting tools to objects. This textbook introduces both the procedural methods and the hidden premises of biostatistical analysis.

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9781032328386

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Reviews

This is a unique and thoughtful approach to the use of statistics within a broader, holistic research endeavor. The text is both sophisticated and accessible. It is clear and even masterful in contextualizing the uses (and misuses) of statistics through an argument that presents statistical reasoning, method of calculation, and an extensive discussion of the conceptual assumptions these tools require in a broader research endeavor. --Paul Fuller, Illinois College This book takes an innovative and critical approach to teaching biostatistics. The use of variations on a single example (heart rate of high school runners) to illustrate the various statistical techniques is a valuable feature. IT allows students to see the implications of choice of statistical technique better than using different examples for each technique. - Harry Murray, Northern Arizona University

Author Information

David Baronov is Professor of Sociology at St. John Fisher College in Rochester, New York, where his current research interests include the ontology of social science methods and the quantitative/qualitative divide. Previous publications include Conceptual Foundations of Social Science Methods (2012) and The Dialectics of Inquiry across the Historical Social Sciences (2014).

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