Whilst qualitative research can be confused with anecdotes and opinions, this overlooks the systematic and critical approach applied in rigorous qualitative research based on explicit sampling strategies, systematic analysis of data and a commitment to examining counter explanations [ 15, 16].
The administration denies this, but has failed to produce a plausible counter-explanation). Expect plenty more tugging and counter-tugging in the weeks to come.
How one assesses the legitimacy, plausibility, or likelihood of the specific counter-explanation will bear substantial weight here, and that in turn will depend significantly on among other things background beliefs, commitments, metaphysical dispositions, and the like.
The Cartesian skeptic tries to undermine vast swaths of knowledge with a single counter-explanation of the evidence (such as the hypothesis that you are dreaming or the hypothesis that an evil demon is deceiving you).
The probabilistic skeptic, in contrast, points to pedestrian counter-explanations that are easy to verify: maybe you transposed the digits of a phone number, maybe the ticket agent thought you wanted to fly to Moscow, Russia rather than Moscow, Idaho, etc.
In the particular case of pelvic reduction in sticklebacks, most evolutionary biologists would probably automatically reach for a counter-explanation of pre-existing standing genetic variation for rapid parallel evolution (e.g. Barrett and Schluter 2008), and this may well be tenable.
While it could be argued that this spared memory for landmarks is due to more attention being directed at objects at decision points, our results clearly counter this explanation, since highly attended landmarks were remembered worse than less attended landmarks in AD.
One counter-intuitive explanation is that unconditional US support for the Iraqi government actually undercuts the incentives to make progress on the political front.
In the case of East Harlem, rising crime fears are accompanied by an obvious statistical explanation: Countering trends in most of the city, crime there has increased drastically.
Guided by a police axiom that "murders are usually what they seem," Mr. Thomas counters, "the simplest explanation for what has gone into the books as one of the most perplexing and notorious murders of the decade is also the truth".
Only in a few cases have demographic concepts played a central role, as in the case of the theory of the demographic transition that evolved during the 1930s as a counter to biological explanations of fertility declines that were then current.
