So, here’s something I’ve felt compelled to say when I’m giving a public presentation in the last couple of months: “Just say the one true thing.”
It’s my tendency to couch things, to provide all kinds of caveats, or downplay a finding so that I’ve got a bit of wiggle room. And in a lot of areas of social science, that’s still pretty sound advice.
If you look at the relationship between one variable and another, there are often 100 articles that test out the link between the two. A majority may say it’s a positive relationship, but about 30% find no relationship or a negative one. So, a bit of hedging is necessary there.
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