from neo-colonialism. If many of them oppose it nonetheless, they tend not to do so in the context of sponsored research. Hence we find the potential for bias toward the paradigms of imperialism at the start of research. The potential is enhanced by the fact that nearly all investigators ingested these paradigms at the time they were trained. Scientific method is relied on to ward off systematic bias, but it cannot do so in a neo-colonial situation such as we are describing. It merely disguises the bias behind a façade of spurious objectivity. The façade is most impressive when formal models are used and when masses of quantitative data are processed. However, these approaches seem to confer no greater immunity than do others.5 Most of the models are drawn from Western theory. Given that other models are likely to provide equally good fit in a typically complex system, the systematic choice of a Western model adds to the probability that the system will be wrongly subsumed under an inappropriate paradigm. The same systematic error recurs in the choice of assumptions. A special problem arises when simulation models are developed specifically for mass data-processing. The choice of variables is conditioned by the availability of statistics. These, in turn, reflect the information needs of the prior colonial epoch (or present large-scale commerce); hence, the simulation becomes a caricature. One must see this problem in the context of theories that explain so little of the variance—when they are tested at all—that a bad model or bizarre assumption is almost never rejected for reasons that have anything to do with scientific method or results. The favored models are congruent with views, values, and interests which would not be abandoned in any case. Empirical research fares no better than theoretical: it is hobbled by the same biases. Implicit Western models tend to govern the selection of problem, field- work area, sample design, data categories, and the like. Interview biases are monotonous in their congruence with the hypothesis and purpose of a study. Perhaps the most serious problem in empirical research is the tendency to read into a given situation some truism dredged up from European history—about which more will be said later. Thus it appears that Western science, like Western history, has been methodologically incapable of controlling its own tendency to interpret the Third World in terms of the paradigms of Western ethno- science and the interests of imperialism. For this