Try this puzzle: With a standard calculator, I started with the number 6, did some analysis to answer a specific question, and ended up with the number 28 as my result. What sequence of steps did I take to get there? If you think you know what they are, you’re almost certainly wrong. There are an infinity of ways, and a standard calculator doesn’t reveal which one I used. To be sure, the steps exist. But they’re in my head, and you’d have to do more work (like interview me) to discover them. I’m also likely to forget them. This might seem unimportant, because I have the answer: 28. But how do you or I know it is the correct one? The best way to convince ourselves of that is to look at the sequence of steps and check that they make sense. But we can’t do that easily. They’re hidden from view.

A spreadsheet is only slightly better than this at revealing the process of analysis. You can make it out, but barely. You have to really work at it. That not only makes it hard for others to assess what one does to data, it makes it hard for even the creator of that spreadsheet to keep track of what he or she has done and to see and fix errors.

For complex analysis, what social scientists usually do instead is write analysis steps in a statistical programming language, of which there are many. Such a program is like a recipe, one anyone familiar with the language can read. It says precisely how you go from raw ingredients (the data) to final product (the answer). Moreover, one can annotate such programs with plain-language descriptions of steps, making them even easier to understand and to find and fix errors. Analysis written out this way makes plain what has been done and why. Errors are far easier to find and fix than they would be in a spreadsheet.

But Mr. Piketty’s work is not complex and multivariate. It’s fairly simple. And for that, a spreadsheet is a reasonable choice. Moreover, because advanced training is not required to examine a spreadsheet, by working in one, and sharing it, Mr. Piketty made it possible for more people to check his work. That’s praiseworthy.

If the allegations hold up, Mr. Piketty may have made some errors in his spreadsheet. But the choice of that tool is not to blame for them. Were his work more complex, he’d likely have been better off using a statistical programming language. But it isn’t, and a spreadsheet is just fine.