Based on a symposium hosted by the American Philosophical Society, Evidence: The Use and Misuse of Data brings together essays from scholars representing a host of disciplines from statistics through psychology and anthropology to examine the question of evidence and what it means.

Contributors examine the place of evidence across a host of research areas, including early psychiatric methods, ethnographic fieldwork, antebellum African American historical debates, and the historicization of artificial intelligence. While the essays delve into issues surrounding specific cases, an overarching theme emerges: that human judgment is essential in interpreting and evaluating evidence and that assessing evidence is a process.

Featuring an introduction by Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Linda Greenhouse, the collection is a valuable resource for scholars and students in any field that relies on empirical observation and its interpretation.

Contributors: Nicholas Barron, Gordon Fraser, Linda Greenhouse, Lindsey Grubbs, Robert M. Hauser, Kathleen Hall Jamieson, Jennifer Burek Pierce, Angela G. Ray, Jutta Schickore, Andrew M. Schocket, Richard Shiffrin, Joshua Sternfeld, Stephen M. Stigler, Mark Turin.