Sociology as a science

Question 1

Science as a product of modernuty

Answer 1

in modernity, religious, spiritual and supernatural explanations for events are replaced by scientific explanations based on empirical evidence, so science became seen as superior to other forms of knowledge

Question 2

Empirical evidence definition

Answer 2

observable evidence collected in the physical or social world

Question 3

Popper (2002) - the scientific method (a hypothetico-deductive method)

Answer 3

1. hypothesis formation
2. falsification - testing a hypothesis against evidence to try and prove it wrong
3. use of empirical evidence
4. replication - testing can be checked by other researchers
5. accumulation of evidence - cycle of hypothesis formation, falsification and new hypothesis formation until the hypothesis seems accurate based on the evidence
6. prediction - suggesting what will happen in the same circumstances in the future
7. theory formation
8. scrutiny (by other scientists)

Question 4

Popper (2002)’s principle of falsification

Answer 4

• no hypothesis can even be finally proven as true, as there is always the possibility of a future exception
• a hypothesis can easily be proven false by just one piece of evidence
• eg the theory that all swans are white can never be proven as definitively true but it can be proven false by just one example

Question 5

Objectivity and value freedom - objectivity involves 3 main aspects

Answer 5

• open-mindedness of the researcher and a willingness to consider all possibilities and evidence
• value-freedom - keeping personal prejudices separate from research
• findings should be open to inspection and criticism by other researchers

Question 6

Science and the study of society - positivism

Answer 6

• positivism is the view that logic, methods and procedures of natural sciences can be applied to sociology with little modification
• Comte argued that the application of natural science methodology to studying society would produce a ‘positive science of society’ showing that society is governed by cause and effect
• Marx also applied the ideas of cause and effect to sociology
• Durkheim - “consider social facts as things” - argued that natural science methods enables an objective and value-free science of society

Question 7

Science and the study of society - positivism - social facts

Answer 7

• positivists believe that there are social facts which cause events in society
• Durkheim said that the aim of sociology should be the study of social facts
• examples of social facts: class, family, religion, etc
• social facts constrain and limit the actions of individuals

Question 8

Social facts definition

Answer 8

phenomena that exist outside individuals and independently of their minds, but which act upon them in ways which constrain or mould their behaviour

Question 9

Science and the study of society - positivism - the main features of positivism

Answer 9

• a view that human behaviour is a response to observable social facts which can be explained in terms of cause and effect relationships
• direct observation and the use of quantitative methods should be used to study society
• research should focuses on looking for the social causes of events in society (eg Durkheim seeking the causes of suicide which he suggested were imbalances of social integration and moral regulation)
• focus of sociology is the study of social institutions and the social structure as a whole, not on the individual, as these institutions shape individuals

Question 10

Social integration definition

Answer 10

the integration of individuals into social groups, binding them into society and building social cohesion

Question 11

Moral regulation definition

Answer 11

the regulation or control by social values of the actions and desires of individuals

Question 12

Arguments that sociology cannot be scientific (specifically against laboratory experiments)

Answer 12

1. the problem of prediction - human beings are unpredictable and have free will, unlike aspects of the natural sciences
2. artificiality - sociology wants to study society in its normal state not in an artificial experiment
3. ethical issues with using human beings in a laboratory
4. the Hawthorne Effect
5. validity - people may distort or conceal the truth, or refuse to cooperate
6. empirical observation - Popper suggests hypotheses must be capable of being tested against evidence, but not all social phenomena are quantifiable

Question 13

Science and the study of society - interpretivist perspective

Answer 13

• argue that sociology cannot be treated as a natural science - emphasising the difference between society and natural science
• argue that people don’t just respond to situations but give meanings to situations
• it is impossible to predict human behaviour and how they interpret events
• Weber - verstehen - this cannot be found during scientific processes

Question 14

The view of science in these theories can be criticised as

Answer 14

• it is based on assumptions about what natural science and scientific method are really like, as realists suggest
• it ignores the way scientific knowledge is socially constructed

Question 15

Realism definition

Answer 15

the view that events in both the social and natural worlds are produced by underlying structures and processes which may be unobservable

Question 16

The realist view of science - Bhaskar (1998)

Answer 16

• suggests that not all phenomena are observable and measurable in both society and the natural world
• argues that the positivist view is based on the assumption that natural sciences are based on direct observations, but many scientific discoveries have been inferred not observed eg sub-atomic particles, germs, energy etc
• in sociology we cannot directly observe structures but we can infer them by their effects (eg can’t observe class but can infer it by income levels)
• even Durkheim used unobservable things (social integration, moral regulation) in his suicide study

Question 17

The realist view of science - open and closed systems - Sayer (1992)

Answer 17

• prediction is often not precise
• some natural science experiments have an advantage in prediction as it can study events in closed systems, where researchers can isolate and manipulate all the variables
• however, sociological (and some natural science) experiments happen in open systems, where all factors can’t be controlled so prediction is much more difficult
• suggests that both positivism and interpretivism have incorrect ideas of hat natural science is like
• sociology is a science because it is studied in the same way as some elements of natural science

Question 18

Paradigm definition

Answer 18

a framework of scientific laws, concepts, theories, methods and assumptions within which scientists operate, and which provides guidelines for the conduct of research and what counts as proper evidence

Question 19

The social constructionist approach: Kuhn (1962), the influence of paradigms and ‘scientific revolutions’

Answer 19

• argues that scientists work within paradigms
• paradigms affect what scientists look for and how they look for it, as well as providing what is seen as correct - learned during training where scientists are socialised into the accepted view of science, like how sociologists learn their ideologies
• most scientists rarely question paradigms and try to fit observations into the paradigm rather than aiming to falsify them
• observations which don’t fit into paradigms are seen as incorrect - only when there are many anomalies is the paradigm challenged
• Kuhn argues that science changes in dramatic ‘scientific revolutions’ when there is lots of evidence against a paradigm so it breaks down and is replaced
• could be argued that scientific knowledge is a social construct

Question 20

Social constructionist approach - do scientists cheat? reconstructed logic and logic-in-use

Answer 20

• Kaplan (1973) argues that scientists write up research using reconstructed logic (the formal method they’re meant to)
• but in practice they depart from these methods into unsystematic ones (Kaplan calls this logic-in-use)
• in effect this is a form of scientific cheating
• 1 in 4 scientists is willing to provide original data for others to check
• 1998 British Medical Journal - 5% of published articles reached minimum standards of scientific soundness

Question 21

Social constructionist approach - social influences on the nature and direction of scientific research
science is itself a social product created by interpretations and values of the scientists

Answer 21

• the desire of researchers to prove their hypothesis right and for their experiments to succeed
• whether the research area is one of current interest or lucrative for financial backers
• whoever is paying for the research
• pressures to publish and publishers’ deadlines
• current state of knowledge and availability of existing data
• how useful the research is seen to be (by governments, private companies etc)
• desire for promotion and career success
• time and money available to do research
• theoretical perspective - paradigm of research
• values of the researcher - whether the subject is seen as interesting and important

Question 22

Postmodernism, sociology and science

Answer 22

• postmodernists view sociology as a metanarrative
• there is a loss of faith in science as we’ve moved away from modernism and science has had harmful effects (climate change etc)
• no sociological research of any kind provides a factual description of society and concepts like structure, gender etc are imposed on the world by sociologists
• it is pointless trying to find the social causes of behaviour as society has become fragmented into so many different groups that there is no longer a ‘society’ or ‘social structure’
• claims of objectivity and value freedom by scientists are just attempts to assert science as the superior form of knowledge

Question 23

Summary of 4 positions in the debate

Answer 23

• positivists argue that sociology can and should be a science using empirical quantitative data
• interpretivists ague that sociology cannot be a science due to unpredictability of human behaviour and different subjective meanings assigned to things
• realists argue that positivists and interpretivists have an incorrect understanding of science as science deals with both observable data and hidden structures, so both positivism and interpretivism can be seen as scientific
• social constructionists and postmodernists suggest that what counts as science is a product of social influences, lack of objective scientific method and scientists not following their own criteria of ‘good science’

Question 24

Sociology may be regarded as scientific is it strives to achieve

Answer 24

• value freedom
• objectivity
• the use of systematic research methods to collect evidence (qualitative or quantitative)
• careful analysis of data and hypotheses in light of evidence and logical argument
• findings should be open to inspection, criticism, debate and testing by other researchers