ALCHEMY IN THE BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

Access to powerful new computers has encouraged routine use of highly complex analytic techniques, often in the absence of any theory, hypotheses, or model to guide the researcher's expectations of results. The author examines the potential of such techniques for generating spurious results, and urges that in exploratory work the outcome be subjected to a more rigorous criterion than the usual tests of statistical significance. Hillel Einhorn is Assistant Professor of Behavioral Science, Graduate School of Business, University of Chicago.