Evidential Pluralism maintains that in order to establish a causal claim one normally needs to establish the existence of an appropriate conditional correlation and the existence of an appropriate mechanism complex, so when assessing a causal claim one ought to consider both association studies and mechanistic studies. Hitherto, Evidential Pluralism has been applied to medicine, leading to the EBM+ programme, which recommends that evidence-based medicine should systematically evaluate mechanistic studies alongside clinical studies. This paper argues that Evidential Pluralism can also be fruitfully applied to the social sciences. In particular, Evidential Pluralism provides (i) a new approach to evidence-based policy; (ii) a new account of the evidential relationships in more theoretical research; and (iii) new philosophical motivation for mixed methods research. The application of Evidential Pluralism to the social sciences is also defended against two objections.

证据多元主义认为，为了建立因果关系，通常需要建立适当的条件相关性的存在和适当的机制复合体的存在，因此在评估因果关系时，应同时考虑关联研究和机制研究。迄今为止，证据多元主义已被应用于医学，导致了 EBM+ 计划，该计划建议循证医学应在临床研究的同时系统地评估机制研究。本文认为证据多元主义也可以卓有成效地应用于社会科学。特别是，证据多元主义提供了 (i) 一种新的循证政策方法；(ii) 在更多的理论研究中对证据关系的新解释；(iii) 混合方法研究的新哲学动机。证据多元主义在社会科学中的应用也有两个反对意见。