To the Editor — In an insightful Comment Bliege Bird and Codding1 highlight a number of important issues to consider in the analysis of cross-cultural anthropological data. However, a casual reader of the Comment could be forgiven for taking away the message that cross-cultural data in anthropology is inherently flawed, and so is of limited use. We want to emphasize that comparative analysis plays an essential role in all non-experimental sciences, including anthropology and archaeology. This is because when systems cannot be manipulated due to scales of time and space, or issues of logistics or ethics, the only way to evaluate alternative outcomes is by analysing the results of natural experiments.
Source: Ecology - nature.com
