Is Sociology a Science?

==Sociology is a Science:==

Positivist sociologists believe that it is possible to establish objective facts through scientific research methods and the thorough ==collection and analysis of empirical evidence.== They argue that their research follows the scientific method described previously.

A good sociologist identifies a social problem or question. Following research, they formulate a hypothesis. Although they are very unlikely to use laboratory experiments, they would argue that they use rigorous, reliable research methods that produce sound ==quantitative data== which can be analysed, leading to conclusions that are then published in peer reviewed academic journals.

Classic positivist sociologists like Auguste Comte and Emile Durkheim were firmly of this view. Indeed, when Durkheim conducted his famous study Suicide he did so in part to establish how the science of sociology could explain all human behaviour, even that which most would consider fundamentally individual and “antisocial”.

Like a natural scientist, he tested his ==hypothesis== against a range of “variables” (e.g. religious belief) to understand the impact these social features had on suicide rates. While Durkheim’s study has been extensively criticised, he did reach conclusions that supported his ==hypothesis== and published them in a highly influential and much read essay

Evaluation:

Interpretivists and postmodernists believe that this misunderstands the nature of society and human behaviour. While potassium will always react with water, humans will (within certain parameters) do as they please. They cannot be scientifically studied in the same way.

Taking Durkheim’s study on suicide as an example, even other positivists criticise the reliability of his data and the scientific rigour of his method. The calculation of suicide rates between countries might have been inconsistent. Furthermore, some of the key concepts in the study (such as social cohesion and social control) were very difficult to ==operationalise.==

Karl Popper argued that positivist sociology generally failed to be as scientific as it intended because it used ==inductive reasoning== rather than deductive reasoning.
- In other words, instead of subjecting their hypothesis to ==falsification,== trying to find evidence to disprove it, they do the opposite: they try to find evidence that supports their hypothesis.
The flaw with this approach is often illustrated with swans. If you had a hypothesis that "all swans are white", you would find more and more supporting evidence with every white swan you found. But the critical evidence is the black swan that proves your hypothesis incorrect.
Popper calls this ==falsification.==
- Instead of searching for supportive evidence, the researcher should try and prove that their hypothesis is untrue. If they are unable to do so, it remains the best explanation.

Sociology is NOT a Science:

Interpretivists argue that the study of human society must go beyond ==empirical== and supposedly objective evidence to include subjective views, opinions, emotions, values: the things that can't be directly observed and counted. These are phenomena that ==require interpretation.==

As such, they conclude not only that sociology is not a science, but that it should not try to be one. Humans are not like chemicals or elements, about which laws can be established and proved. Each human is unique and has the agency to make his or her own decisions.

In trying to make sociology scientific, ==positivists== miss the truth rather than uncovering it. In trying to make everything measurable and reliable, they stop it from being real. Everything is moved into handy boxes so that it can be counted, but human feelings and meanings cannot be genuinely revealed by tick boxes and percentages. This debate, then, is right at the heart of the discussion about the merits and limitations of the research methods available to sociologists that will be discussed in a later section.

Postmodernists also argue that sociology cannot and should not try to be scientific; that theories that claim to be scientific are ==metanarratives:== just big stories, with no real validity.

Evaluation:

The problem with the argument that sociology should not be a science is the follow up question: well then, what is it? If sociology is focused on subjective views, interactions, meanings, and phenomena, how much use is it? The results of research might be interesting, but does it constitute a serious academic subject?

After all, telling the inside story of a violent gang, or a group of naughty schoolchildren is the stuff of journalism or reality television unless it can be used to develop more general theories. Weber, often seen as the founding father of social action approaches to sociology, still argued that sociologists should approach their study in an entirely objective way even though they should be interested in the subjective opinions of the people they study.

Sociology COULD be a Science:

Thomas Kuhn:

A ==paradigm== is a particular and accepted set of thoughts and assumptions about the way things are and the way research should be done.

Thomas Kuhn argues that the way most people see science is not quite accurate. It is not purely objective: at a particular point in time scientific research is done within a particular paradigm.

NB: Only research something in a certain way based on a specific paradigm.

==The Kuhn Cycle==

Mainstream science therefore accepts the assumptions of that paradigm and views its conclusions within those basic assumptions.

While it does that, there will be ==‘radical science’== that challenges those assumptions, and so possibility arises for a paradigm shift; with that the radical science may become the new mainstream – the radical becomes the norm.

So contemporary scientists consider their evidence from within the taken for granted assumptions of, for example, evolution and gravity (just as scientists once took it for granted that the Earth was in the centre of the universe, or even that the Earth was flat).

As such, Kuhn argues that sociology is not a mature, mainstream science because it hasn’t found a unifying paradigm (yet).

Sociologists do not share a set of assumptions about the world or about how to do research (i.e. debate between positivism and interpretivism, or between functionalists, feminists, and Marxists)

He concludes that sociology is a ==‘young science’ ==but that it could, in the future, coalesce around one paradigm and become a science.