Evidence-based dialectics

an article by Kevin Morrell (University of Warwick) published in Organization Volume 19 Number 4 (July 2012)

Abstract

‘Evidence-based policy’ and ‘evidence-based management’ are increasingly popular ways of describing the relationship between research and practice. The majority discussing the evidence-based approach have tended to be in favour: here, ‘believers’.

Yet this approach has also attracted critics: ‘heretics’.

Understanding of such a division can be enhanced by dialectics: a process which tries to destabilize, reconcile or transcend apparent opposites.

This divide is not simply a consequence of differences relating to epistemology, but also aesthetics: a set of reactions to the world seen as art. So, to analyse this divide requires a correspondingly rich model of dialectic. Nietzsche’s Birth of Tragedy offers this in its account of Apolline and Dionysian responses to the world.

Dialectics supports a move beyond synchronous critique, and allows speculation as to the future development of the evidence-based approach.

Hazel’s comment:
This article does not appear to deal with the “policy-based evidence” issue which is experienced by consultants and researchers discovering that if their studies do not produce the expected result then they are ignored.
Been there, seen that one from both sides of the fence, but I do not have to like it.

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