Positivism, Post-Positivism, and Intelligence Analysis

摘要

In recent years, the Intelligence Community has been rather infatuated with positivist social science. Analysts like Stephen Marrin and Gregory Treverton have suggested that the best way for practitioners to reform intelligence analysis (and indeed the whole intelligence cycle) is to borrow positivist methodologies such as evidence-based practices and hypothesis testing from academic scientists and social scientists. Here, analysts seem particularly drawn to making analogies with the medical profession. The constraints which practitioners face and the methodologies they use in making an assessment or diagnosis are frequently compared. For example, Gary McClelland noted that: Just as physicians often have to make quick assessment based on limited and sometimes conflicting information sources with no two cases ever being quite the same, so too intelligence analysts evaluate and characterize evolving situations using partial information from sources varying in credibility.