However, not all agree that sociology is a science. The scientific philosophers Popper and Kuhn are sceptical of sociology’s scientific status. Moreover, interpretivist sociologists believe that whether sociology is a science or not is an irrelevant debate. They argue that validity is the key to understanding society and social problems and that positivists waste too much time and effort weighing up the scientific merits of sociological research. Positivists believe that sociology should base its logic and methods on the natural sciences such as chemistry, biology and physics.
Interpretivists are those who support the use of more humanistic methods within research as they believe society cannot be studied as a science because human behaviour is not governed by society. These sociologists each make different claims to support their use of either quantitative or qualitative data. Within this essay, the claims supporting the use of each data will be discussed as well as the claims to dispute them. Quantitative data, according to Mustapha (2009), is data that usually takes the form of statistical and numerical information. This form of data is obtained using various quantitative research methods such as questionnaires and structured interviews.
Sociology is in one way or another related to science and common sense but it is also in many ways distinct from the two. Early sociologists like Comte Durkheim tried to link sociology with the natural sciences as they argued that human beings and social activity could be studied rationally and objectively producing anticipated results. However this is only true to a certain extent, because as we know people are not atoms or identical particles, their existence consists of feelings and attitudes and their social realm is shaped and created through meaning and interpretation. Sociology is not a science but it isscientific. The
Positivists believe that sociology is a science and look for cause and effect relationships. However, in contrast to positivists and structuralists, Interpretivists prefer qualitative data as they have a micro view of society and have a more in depth perception of society. They disagree with the idea that sociology is a science and they think that humans are not rocks or plants or any other natural phenomena and we have free will, choice, consciousness and opinions so we cannot be compared to rocks and plants etc and our behaviour cannot be explained in terms of cause and effect, just by the choices we make. So they feel that it isn’t appropriate for studying human beings. There are a wide range of quantitative sources for example questionnaires, structured interviews, experiments and official statistics.
Also this can rule out fluke answers which can be ignored. This is then why sociologists like to use questionnaires when conducting research. Questionnaires pose fewer ethical issues than other research methods. With questionnaires some intrusive questions may be asked but it is under the respondent’s choice whether they want to answer that specific question or not. There should be guaranteed anomity so they know that anything that is answered will not be brought back to them as the questionnaire is anonymous.
Sociologists do not simply declare their beliefs indisputable truths – they do research to determine whether those beliefs are correct. Their investigations are rooted in the scientific method that distinguishes the sociological perspective from “commonsense” interpretations of the world. The sociological perspective emphasizes that people’s thoughts and action are strongly influenced by the groups to which they belong as well as by impinging social factors such as beliefs, values, practices and institutions. From birth to death individuals are imbedded within and influenced by groups and larger structures. As sociologists our main goal is to understand social situations and look for repeating patterns in society.
Positivism is a huge part of sociology. There is an abundance of controversy between whether sociology should be studied using that or Interpretivism. Positivism, adapted by Marx and Engels, allows sociologists to make laws about human behavior just like how scientists make laws of the natural world (Gordon). Sociology should use positivism because sociology uses empirical research methods, behaviors can be objectively studied and values can be removed from the equation, and also because sociology mainly consists of discovering social facts. Positivists tend to use empirical research methods such as experiments and questionnaires to study sociology (Andrews).
“Sociology is not, cannot be and should not be a science”. To what extent do sociological arguments and evidence support his view? There has been a constant debate that sociology is or is not a science. Positivists believe that sociology should be studied in an objective and no bias way gathering quantitative data. On the other hand, interpretivists study sociology by putting themselves in the shoes of whom they are studying as this created verstehern.
Kuhn states that a scientist’s switch between one paradigm to the next is similar to a “gestalt switch” where neural programming is required rather than argument and persuasion. Paul Feyerabend also outlined science as a discipline harmed by a dogmatic acceptance of dominant methodological frameworks. Feyerabend argued that Kuhn’s paradigm model had painted too simple of a picture of science and he therefore proposed the idea that there should be no specific method in which to ensure the objectivity of science. He believes both logical and illogical ideas may be allowed to progress in science and therefore science is better served when we accept “Epistemological anarchism” as opposed to Kuhn “law and order science.” For this essay I will compare and contrast Kuhn and Feyerabend’s models as they pertain to the rhetoric of science. Feyerebend gives rhetoric and argument a function in the sphere of science and nowhere is this made clearer than in Kuhn and Feyerabend’s respective disagreements on the issue of Incommensurability which is denoted as the difficulty to determine which theory is more accurate than the other.
Research Methods Participant Observation: Overview Participant Observation Some research methods (such as questionnaires) stress the importance of the researcher not becoming "personally involved" with the respondent, in the sense of the researcher maintaining both a personal and a social distance between themselves and the people they are researching. Participant observation, however, is sometimes called a form of subjective sociology, not because the researcher aims to impose their beliefs on the respondent (this would simply produce invalid data), but because the aim is to understand the social world from the subject's point-of-view. This method involves the researcher "getting to know" the people they're studying by entering their world and participating - either openly or secretly - in that world. This means you put yourself "in the shoes" of the people you're studying in an attempt to experience events in the way they experience them. Social Distance The technical term for this social distance is objectivity - the ability to remain detached, aloof or personally separate from the people you are researching.