Has Funding Made a Difference to Research Methods?

It has been argued that foundation funding has distorted methods in Americansociology in the direction of quantification. This argument rests on a number ofassumptions, of which the key one is that in the absence of such funding, methodwould have developed differently. Data on the methods of funded and unfundedresearch articles are analysed, and show that the trend to increasing levels ofquantification is almost equally present in unfunded work, which suggests thatfunding should not be held responsible for the trend.