I think this article seeks to examine the various means of conducting social science research and the pitfalls and benefits to both. Eberstadt employs a much more “typical” and “accepted” approach in categorizing the various factors which may have been causing the high death rate among Russians. By looking at a variety of different factors and seeking a qualitative means of explaining this increase in the death rate and the decrease in population he exhibits the ways in which a more qualitative approach can examine more factors in explaining a social phenomenon while also reaching, what many view as, a more defensible conclusion. This method, while being viewed as “more accurate” fails to reach any results and instead leaves the question as to why Russians are dying in higher numbers unanswered. Parsons, on the other hand, engages in what is typically viewed as a less accurate means of examining a social phenomenon and conducts interviews with Russians. The problematic nature of this approach, however, is the way in which Parsons tries to create a singular turning point in Russian history and attempts to gather evidence for this perspective through the interviews she conducts. The question then becomes what to do when the “typical” method does not yield a result and the “flawed” measure yields a result that is unconvincing. I believe the combination of both approaches can yield useful observations and seems to answer the problem while independently their explanations may be lacking. The way in which Eberstadt’s quantitative approach excludes any of the traditional causes to explain the decrease in the Russian population seems to be just as important as the answers provided by Parsons. By removing the scientific causes for this phenomenon Eberstadt validates Parsons claims that the Russians may be dying because of a broken heart and the absence of hope.