Should Sociology Be Scientific?

In sociology there be two main contrasting celestial horizons to how the subject of sociology should be approached and study, as a science or not. In this essay I will be explaining the jousts of each side of the discussion fully, and aim to exhibition the positive and negative points of either approach to studying sociology. The inaugural argument I will analyse is Positivism. Positivists support the stead that sociology should be studied as a science, arguing that golf-club and the activities of the single(a)s in ships company as a whole hold main similarities and attributes to the physical or vivid world.Positivists suppose that accessible factors be largely winding in find human behaviour, an sheath existence that positivists think that people wish to judge plane sectionners in order to allow them to marry and produce children, letting them go through societies expectations of them. Positivists use scientific methodology, which federal agency that their proc edures resemble methods of collecting data that atomic number 18 usually seen in practice in innate sciences. Examples of some(a) of these methods are questionnaires, coordinate interviews or statistics.Using scientific procedures in the Positivists view means that more accurate cases will be gathered, they hold the view that it is practicable to see ordination in an objective way. An example of this is Durkheim, who believed the social facts of society could be considered in the uniform way as objects and events of the natural world. He thought that social facts did not only consist of amours that could be discover objectively or in a direct flair, but in any case printing systems which exist in the consciousness of individuals.To look at these belief systems in a scientific manner Durkheim thought that they couldnt be changed at will, but were controlled by society making them available to scientific approaches. correlativity is an new(prenominal) part of scientific methodology, where by looking at assorted social facts correlations are rear between them, where there is evidence of a family between two or more variant factors. Durkheim put that in his study of self-destruction there was a relationship between suicide and religions, (e. g. Protestantism and a high suicide rate).After correlations are imbed between social facts the look forer whitethorn believe that one social fact causes another to make a possibility, such as constabulary-breaking causes a person to be play along works class, or cosmos working class causes a person to commit crime. superstar problem with this part of the positivist scientific methodology is that some correlations found by research workers may just be by chance or indirect. This give the sackister occur where two social facts are found together but in actual fact dont absorb any direct connections to each other.It provoke happen that a third social fact has a relationship with both the other so cial facts, which can cause them to be linked. An example of this is gender creation the cause of both level of criminality and side in the class hierarchy, which illustrates that class and crime arent actually linked, but are both related to gender. In positivists research they also believe that if findings are verify and found in umteen unlike contexts such as in different societies around the world and during different date periods the research can be see as existence a law of human behaviour, which is the main aim of the positivist perspective.This is where a statement is found to be avowedly in all circumstances, a comparison cosmos scientific laws such as gravity macrocosm established, positivists hold the view that these laws can be found in human behaviour. Durkheim thought he had found a law of human behaviour when his research into suicide had the conclusion that suicide rates always increased when in society there was a drastic change in the economy.Using scientif ic methodology such as questionnaires does have the positive of being unquestionable, as the data could be calm repeatedly and it is probably to achieve the same conclusions over and over again, but also has the weakness that people can lie and be biased in the questionnaires towards themselves. Another problem is that questionnaires fasten the answers of the individual being asked the questions, which also can happen in organize interviews where the individual cant put across what they want to say because of the structured questions and style of the interview.Also questionnaires and scientific methodology doesnt take into account the individual differences that could be involved in the issue that is being researched. An example of this is suicide. query into the matter of suicide has been criticised when it has been done utilise scientific matters as Douglas make the criticism of Durkheims research that not all suicides can be tempered as the same type of act as they could h ave different or contrasting meanings behind them, e. g. lderly Eskimos will kill themselves for the sake of their society, where as a someone in a western society may kill themselves because they are depressed.Also, in Durkheims research into suicide, J. D Douglas criticized him saying that the statistics utilise werent valid, as the decision to if the sudden death was a suicide is make by the coroner, who in turn is influenced by the family and friends of the victim. This creates the possibility of there being systematic bias in the decision, having the consequence of not very reliable statistics to base his conclusions on.Another weakness of scientific methodology is it can result in generalisations in the conclusions, where the police detective will split the data collected into different categories, as Durkheim carried come forth in his study into suicide, which can be too reductionist, missing out important factors in the issue being researched such as the background of the suicides etc. Another method utilize in sociological research is observation, which positivists believe that the social world can be objectively observed and classified.Observation is not only utilize by positivists, but is also apply by many anti-positivist sociologists who have observed bits in connection with subjects like education and suicide, where Atkinson observed the processes involved in the decisions make by coroners in the coroners courts. One problem with using observation is that it is restrictive in the type of situations it can be used in, such as in the study of the subject of politics, sociologists are proscribe from observing the British Cabinet.Also because the results are base on how the situation was observed through the researcher, it is possible for there to be interference from the researcher in the data collected. Another group that support the idea of sociology being a science is realists, who see much of sociology being scientific. An example of th is is the realists sociologist Keat, who see Marxist sociology as scientific as the models developed by Marx was evaluating processes and institutions in society based on empirical data.Realists suggest that both natural and sociological sciences have the same aim in the research carried out which is to develop theories and create perspectives to explain the world based on collected evidence. Auguste Comte was a founder of sociology, and through founding the subject attempted to extract it as a science using a scientific manner in his research, studying social phenomena. He talked about discovering the laws social phenomena being the main aim behind the subject of sociology, and scientific methods being the outflank way of accomplishing this.He also thought that society as a whole was greater than the individuals within it, which in other words meant that society was more complex than the number of people in it, that it involved many other variables. One procedure that Comte supp orted was the HD procedure, which was where you started with a scheme, created a meditation based on that theory, slected a research method that could be verified and analysise the data collected through this method to see if the hypothesis was correct.One problem with this procedure is that although it does have reliable data that is collected, and a straight forward procedure involved, a negative aspect of creating a hypothesis to work with before carrying out the research is that it brings in the possibility that the researcher will pick a research method which will be biased to the hypothesis by be the method most likely to prove it. An example of where this happened was the research into aids attempting to prove it as a gay plague. Another example of a positivist theory was made by Karl Popper, who created the theory of falsification.Popper believed that the stovepipe way to see if a theory or conclusion was true was to let it stand the test of time. In this he meant that t he longer a theory was supported and unreputed by other sociologists, the more true it was. Popper was critical towards Marx, saying that he was unscientific because he didnt use empirical data and that Marxs theory couldnt be proved wrongfulness or right as Marx left his theory open to when the diversity would actually happen, meaning that if a revolution didnt happen in that time period, Marx would still be able to argue that it was going to happen some day in the future.The other side of the argument of should sociology be scientific is held by anti positivists, such as Max Weber. Weber claims that to come to true conclusions the motives of a situation or a persons actions must first be understood. An example of this is if a person is fishing, are they doing it because its their hobby, or possibly because they are hungry. One process supported by Weber was verstehen, which is where the sociologist imagines himself or herself as the person or in the position of the person whose being studied.Weber thought that the motives behind an action are just as important as the actions themselves for coming to the truth behind a subject. there third perspective involved in the debate is Post Modernism, which believe in the grand narrative, or that there is no such amour as just having one dominant theory. Post Modernists believe the best results and theories are academic pick and mixs, where conclusions are drawn from many different perspectives and theories to get an all round finding that includes all the different points of view involved.Post Modernists also think that there is no such thing as one objective truth, and that no one method or way of looking at sociology can arrive at true conclusions as in reality, society is always changing as is the norms and set within society. One post modernist who believes that there is no one technique that can find the truth (a belief held by epistemology) is Lyotard, who sees all epistemology as being based on more the researchers opinions instead of being based on objective knowledge. This is known as being a metanarrative.