Raymond Edwin Wolfinger (29 June 1931 – 6 February 2015) was an American political scientist and professor at the

University of California at Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant uni ...

. He was best known as the co-author (with Steven J. Rosenstone) of an influential book on voter turnout, ''Who Votes.'' Prior to his tenure at Berkeley, he was on the faculty at Stanford University. In between this academic career he was an assistant to Sen.

Hubert H. Humphrey Hubert Horatio Humphrey Jr. (May 27, 1911 – January 13, 1978) was an American pharmacist and politician who served as the 38th vice president of the United States from 1965 to 1969. He twice served in the United States Senate, representing Mi ...

, for whom he helped manage passage of the 1964

Civil Rights Act Civil Rights Act may refer to several acts of the United States Congress, including: * Civil Rights Act of 1866, extending the rights of emancipated slaves by stating that any person born in the United States regardless of race is an American ci ...

. Wolfinger was the source of the well-known

aphorism An aphorism (from Greek ἀφορισμός: ''aphorismos'', denoting 'delimitation', 'distinction', and 'definition') is a concise, terse, laconic, or memorable expression of a general truth or principle. Aphorisms are often handed down by ...

, “The plural of anecdote is data.” He was a

behavioral Behavior (American English) or behaviour (British English) is the range of actions and mannerisms made by individuals, organisms, systems or artificial entities in some environment. These systems can include other systems or organisms as we ...

political scientist, an

empiricist In philosophy, empiricism is an epistemological theory that holds that knowledge or justification comes only or primarily from sensory experience. It is one of several views within epistemology, along with rationalism and skepticism. Empir ...

in search of better data and rigorous thinking and testing, and a protégé of

Robert Dahl Robert Alan Dahl (; December 17, 1915 – February 5, 2014) was an American political theorist and Sterling Professor of Political Science at Yale University. He established the pluralist theory of democracy—in which political outcomes are ...

. He received his Ph.D. in Political Science from

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Sta ...

, his M.A. from the University of Illinois, and his B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley.

References

External links

Links to scholarly articlesLinks to the David B. Filvaroff and Raymond E. Wolfinger Civil Rights Acts Papers, 1961-1968
1931 births 2015 deaths American political scientists American political writers Stanford University faculty Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences University of California, Berkeley faculty Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni 20th-century American non-fiction writers 21st-century American non-fiction writers 20th-century American male writers American male non-fiction writers 21st-century American male writers {{US-polisci-bio-stub