Book Review: Facts, Values and the Policy World by Phil Ryan

The distinction between facts and values is a methodological conundrum which faces all social scientists, not least critical social policy analysts.It concerns the need for evidence and rational argument to support a critical perspective on a social issue.So, an author submitting an article to CSP is expected to embrace explicitly some element of the 'values' associated with the journal.This entails focus on particular social injustices and oppressions and the role of policy in furthering and/or challenging these.There should be an honest political, normative, ethical value bias, supported by evidence or data 'facts with conceptualisation to make a rational argument.The evidence can, of course, take many different forms, but the analyst is expected to strive for some degree of 'objectivity', not least to appeal to the sceptical reader/user, rather than mere dogma or preaching to the converted.Dealing with the fact-value conundrum is a persistent challenge for teaching, researching or formulating policy.It certainly requires reflexivity thereon throughout these different practices, but is this not widely accepted, at least in the contemporary UK?The factvalue distinction is thus not really debatedit is understood that there are no castiron social 'facts' and that 'values' are multi-faceted and often nuanced with interaction between the two.In terms of big data, for example, the facts about economic growth, climate change, income poverty, wealth inequality, racial and gender inequality and oppression, migration are not that much disputed.The key questions are what policy and political significance are attributed to them and thence, what impact policies have and what policies should be followed.This is, of course, where values predominate.The point of this long preamble is that it would be very useful to have a book examining these epistemological and methodological issues and/or a handbook to guide practice for analysts and students on these issues.Unfortunately, this book does not provide such a tool.It focuses on the 'policy world' of analysts in 'government, academia, civil society organisations and so on' (p.9) many of whom apparently adhere to an absolute distinction between facts and values, where only facts should inform policy making and analysis.The gist of Part One is that a rigid distinction between facts and values is misleading and blinkered.