Can a practice really be said to be evidence-based if it only looks at a certain type of evidence? Can it really be scientifically-based reading research if only certain methods are allowed to ask certain types of questions? And that’s the whole problem with the liturgical chants of “evidence” and “evidence-based” and “scientifically-based research” made by the Science of Reading Comedy Club to support a litany of practice taken from their direct-instruction Holy Book.

That’s the whole problem in Special Ed World with their declaration of faith stating that only practices used to manipulate and control behavior are “evidence-based”. These represent a simplistic understanding of research in the social sciences. Within Special Ed World and the Science of Reading Comedy Club, and even the US Department of Education, controlled experimental studies (CES) are thought to be the only way of establishing causal relationships, that one thing causes the other thing to happen.