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[D]ata come to us encrypted, and to understand their meaning we must first break the code --Schmidt 1992, 1170
A serious attempt to answer the vague question posed by Schmidt (1992) of "What Do Data Really Mean?" reveals an answer that is rewarding than you might initially think, because, according to the philosophical hermeneuticist Hans-Georg Gadamer*, meaning is to be found not in the study or in the author, but between the study and the reader, specifically, in the reader's application of the study (1990, 308-9 & 521). The meaning of a study lies beyond the study.
Support for such an interpretation of what studies mean comes from two sources, Popper's (1968) epistemology and work in research synthesis.
Popper's epistemology focuses not on the subjective definition of knowledge with its focus on answering the question: how do you know? Popper's epistemology focuses on objective knowledge - that which is found, among other places, in books, articles, theories, arguments, and the present state of a debate (Popper 1968, 334). Although we create objective knowledge, it is an autonomous world unto itself, to be explored, and in which novel discoveries can be made. For example,
"...the sequence of natural numbers is a human construction. But although we create this sequence, it creates, in its turn, its own autonomous problems. The distinction between odd and even numbers is not created by us: it is an unintended and unavoidable consequence of our creation. Prime numbers, of course, are similar unintended autonomous and objective facts; and in their case it is obvious that there are many facts here for us to discover: there are conjectures like Goldbach's. And these conjectures, though they refer indirectly to objects of our creation, refer directly to problems and facts which have somehow emerged from our creation and which we cannot control or influence: they are hard facts, and the truth about them is often hard to discover. This exemplifies what I mean when I say that the ...world [of objective knowledge] is largely autonomous, though created by us." (ibid, 344, original emphasis).
Work in research synthesis also supports Gadamer's interpretation of the meaning of evidence. For example, part of the meaning of a study entitled "Role of calcium entry blockers in the prophylaxis of migraine" remained unknown until Swanson (1988) synthesized this and related articles with another group of articles, which included "Magnesium: nature's physiologic calcium blocker." Part of the meaning of the first study - unknown to the authors but extant in its application - is that it suggests** a way to prevent the onset of migraine headaches. (See Swanson 1991, 1990 for further elaboration.)
Another example from research synthesis is to be found in the work of Eddy et al. (1992, 283 288). Holtzman et al.'s (1974) study of screening for maple syrup urine disease (MSUD) in infants reveals that screening catches about 92% of the cases. The interpreted or applied meaning of this study can be found when the confidence profile method of meta analysis is used to synthesize this evidence with other work; if newborns in Maryland are screened for MSUD, then from two to seven (95% confidence interval) infants per million would be spared retardation or death, a set of numbers that even politicians can understand them.
The examples from research synthesis support another of Popper's (1968, 370) assertions, that it is through the interaction of people with objective knowledge that knowledge grows. Meta-analysis and research synthesis have created new knowledge without conducting primary research.
The examples from research synthesis also underscore that objective knowledge is independent of us and that discoveries in it are not made easily. If Swanson and Eddy had not purposefully brought the pieces of information together, had not interpreted the studies in light of other studies, then the fuller (applied) meaning of the studies might well have remained hidden. This suggests the need for a hermeneutics of evidence in which a variety of techniques are systematically used for the expressed purpose of interpreting existing evidence in light of other evidence. Think: Mendeleev's organizing of the elements into the periodic table.
Such a hermeneutics of evidence is not limited in use to the biological sciences. As Schmidt (1992, 1179) argues, "It is possible for a behavioral or social scientist today with the needed training and skills to make major original discoveries and contributions without conducting primary research studies -simply by mining the information in accumulated research literatures." This view is made all the more plausible--as is the need for a hermeneutics of evidence--when you realize that a new study has been published in the time it took you to read this thought.
* "The general concern of hermeneutics is to make understandable what is difficult to understand..." (Gadamer 1980, 90). As for Gadamer's reputation, Gergen (1990, 579) said, "Gadamer's view has yet to succumb to criticism."
** These syntheses do not prove hypothesis; the suggest plausible ones (Swanson 1990, 133).
References
Eddy, D. M., Hasselblad, V., & Schachter, R. D. (1992). Meta-analysis by the confidence profile method. New York: Academic Press.
Gadamer, Hans-Georg. (1989). Truth and Method. Translated by Sheed and Ward Ltd. New York: The Crossroad Publishing Corporation. 1989.
Gadamer, Hans-Georg. (1980). "Religious and Poetical Speaking" in Myth, Symbol, and Reality. Edited by Alan M. Olson. University of Notre Dame Press.
Gergen, K. J. (1990). "Social Understanding and the inscription of self." In J.W. Stigler, R.A. Shweder, and G. Herdt (Eds.) Cultural Psychology. (pp. 1-43). Cambridge University Press: Cambridge.
Popper, K.R. (1968). "Epistemology without a knowing subject." In B Van Rootselaar and J.F. Stall (Eds.) Logic, Methodology, and Philosophy of Science III: International Congress for Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science. Amsterdam: North-Holland Publishing Co.
Schmidt, F.L., (1992). "What Do Data Really Mean?" American Psychologist. 47: 1173-1181.
Swanson, D.R. (1988). "Migraine and Magnesium: Eleven Neglected Connections." Perspectives in Biology and Medicine. 31(4): 526-557.
Swanson, D.R. (1990). "Medical literature as a potential source of new knowledge. Bulletin of the Medical Library Association. 78(1): 29-37.
Swanson, D.R. (1990). "The Absence of Co-Citation as a Clue to Undiscovered Causal Connections." Ed. by C.L. Borgman. Scholarly Communication and Bibliometrics. Newbury Park: Sage.
Swanson, D.R. (1991). "Complementary Structures in Disjoint Science Literatures." Association for Computing Machinery. pp. 281-289.
