A lucid and lively exposition and critique of contemporary debates about the scientific standing of the research enterprise in the social sciences and related applied fields such as educational and nursing research. The book is organized into three main parts, the first section containing an exposition of the relevant developments in philosophy against which the practice of research in the social sciences and applied fields must be seen -- the work of Kuhn, Winch, Popper, Lakatos, Feyerabend and others, and the demise of positivism. In part two the various lines of attack on the integrity of social science and educational and nursing research are described and assessed. Finally, one wide but lively area is analyzed in the spirit of the Popperian critical rationalism discussed in the earlier parts of the book.