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.
WHY MARXISM IS SCIENTIFIC Why Marxism is Scientific Introduction This paper provides answers to the question: Why Marxism is Scientific. It is divided into various sections that examine the scientific basis of Marxism. The first section provides answers to aspects of Marxism that make it scientific. Within this section it is evident that scientific knowledge develops from a foundation of claims, which are guarded by theories. The development of scientific knowledge and methods is progressive as opposed to being degenerative, and is consistent with the theories.
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
Theories in Natural science are constructed to explain, predict, and master phenomena. They must be empirically testable or lead to retro dictions that are testable. This is extensively know as the scientific method. The scientific method is one reason is that we put our confidence in scientists. To yield and to develop their theories and conclusions.
“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.
The Sociological Perspective Lesson 1 Lesson 1 The word sociology was first coined by August Comte, a French scholar-philosopher. Comte is considered the father of sociology, though not quite the science of sociology, to which you’ll be introduced in this course. This first lesson introduces you to the science of sociology. In Assignment 1, “Sociology: Perspective, Theory, and Method,” you’ll learn what sociology is all about and how it differs from psychology, which was developed largely from studies in biology. In contrast, sociology arose in the context of political, economic, and social philosophy and from intellectual giants such as Emile Durkheim, Karl Marx, and Max Weber.
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 their small scale means that results may not be representative or generalisable to the wider population. On the other hand interpretivists reject the laboratory experiments because it fails to achieve their main goal of validity. It is an artificial environment producing unnatural behavior. Drifting away from the advantages, There are various practical problems with laboratory experiments. Society is very complex and in practice it would be impossible to control variables that may influence a situation.
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.
"The Power of Everyday Practices", in Brock et al, (2012). "Science As Culture", by Aryn Martin. The main focus of this chapter, "Science As Culture", by Aryn Martin is how science is embedded within social context. Martin states how scientists are human and have certain identities based on gender, class, age, etc. and of how these identities can be bias on scientific facts.