Is sociology really a "science"?

Factual Questions
21

Psychology is a gigantic field that spans from clinical practice, to business organization (Industrial Organizational Psych), to behavioral neuroscience. Much of it is very much and indispututedly science. Psychology focuses on the behavior of individuals while sociology focuses on social systems. There are lots of psychological theories that are both scientific and well known to the public. Pavlov, and then later Skinner are two famous contributers. I went to graduate school in behavioral neuroscience which is a branch of psychology and worked with everything from live animals, to psycholpharmacological drugs, to brain tissues, and even individual cell receptors in an allied biochemistry lab. No one would claim that our lab wasn’t a real science lab.

Psychology is so broad that the psych faculty in large research universities often have extremely little in common. Some may be developing tests for school children, some may be writing books on business practices, and others may go off and study spiders in the jungle somewhere. There is a branch of psychology called Social Psychology that is very similar to sociology but the focus is supposed to be on the individual members within the social structure.

22

Yes. You can run a study that shows that 40% of the variance in Democratic versus Republican voting behavior among black voters in a specific socioeconomic status band can be explained by education level, and then extrapolate from that study to a similar population which has not voted yet, examine their average education level, and make a prediction such as “The medium-poor black voters in Athawhatsit County are expected to break for the Democratic candidate by at least 88%, this being a prediction we can make with 95% confidence”.

Or similarly for likelihood of making certain kinds of purchases, etc.

It’s all aggregate, it’s usually fuzzy rather than highly exact, etc, but yeah they can predict behaviors.

23

Okay, I’ll be the first to say it.

Sociology is a science, pure and simple. Feynman was wrong and his comments stupid (Physicists have long been stupidly scornful of other fields of study, even biology and chemistry; that prejudice goes back over a century.) There’s no question about it whatsoever and saying it isn’t betrays a misunderstanding of what science is.

A field of study dedicated to finding answers about how the world works is a science by definition. Science is not about knowing everything, it’s about knowing more than you do now. Sociology may be a science in the early stages of development. It may be a science that isn’t as far along as chemistry or biology. It may be a science that doesn’t have all the answers. It may even be a science with too many quacks in it. But it’s a science all the same, and like many other younger sciences, most of the criticism of it comes from people who haven’t done a lot of it.

Science is not about what you know. It’s about trying to find out what you DON’T know. Are you going to tell me Sir Isaac Newton was not a scientist? Physics in Newton’s time was just as full of crap - actually, it was MORE full of crap - than sociology today, and Newton himself was much fond of idiocies like alchemy. Geology is a science but continental drift was rejected by most geologists less than fifty years ago and still rejected by many as recently asa the Carter administration; geologists continued to hold on to ludicrous “land bridge” theories to explain what only continental drift/plate tectonics could explain. That doesn’t mean physics wasn’t a science during Newton’s day, or that geology was not a science in 1948; science is not about knowing everything, it’s about trying to know more. So it is with the various branches of science that deal with human behaviour.

24

Capt Ridley, the definition of a science as “a discipline that only generates accurate predictions” is far too narrow and, IMO, would eliminate everything but mathematics, chemistry, and physics as sciences. Another key element of what constitutes a science is the ability to provide rational, plausible explanations. Sociology observes one of the most subjective factors we can think of - human action - and to make predictions based on that is folly at best. What we can do with it, however, is generate explanations for human social behavior. What we do with those explanations is also entirely subjective. But rejecting sociology as a science simply because it cannot make more than a few (if any) predictions is the wrong approach.

ETA to say “What he said” and point at RickJay.

25

By broadening that definition, it certain makes “science” more noble and non-judgemental.

However, in its current form, can’t one say the same thing about astrology or necromancy? There must be some other subtletly to add to that definition to keep in sociology but rule out astrology.

(I’m not dissing sociology – it’s just your mega-inclusive definition of “science” struck me funny.)

26

That’s where a philosophy of science comes into play, arguing ideas of proof and truth and such.

27

To be honest, my understanding of astrology is that it is precisely the opposite of what I (personally) defined science to be. Astrology claims to already know things. Science honestly seeks out knowledge. As Olentzero points out there’s lots to be discussed in the philosophy of science, but science is about honestly examining the natural world. It can’t be done perfectly, but you can try. Astrology isn’t about that; astrology begins with unchallengable assumptions and predicts the future without examining the natural world.

Necromancy doesn’t even deal with the natural world at all.

28

Indeed, I always like to liken half-scientific fields like sociology and (certain branches of) psychology as physics before Newton. I think it is a great analogy. I always say it as a criticism, but perhaps it isn’t one.

Or perhaps it is.

I guess any field deserves credit for trying, and those who try eventually do succeed. But what several people commented how sociology’s questionable theories are old and have not been revised in years, and modern practitioners don’t even care to try, raises some red flags. (Maybe this is the line that separates nascent sciences from just crappy ones.)

29

The clearest, the most powerful phenomenon that can be observed about human societies is this: Humans have two sets of instincts, the set that turns on during times of self-perceived fortune and plenty, and the set that turns on during times of despair.

The instincts of misfortune and desperation are characterized flagrantly by a conscious embrace of violence, by sexual conservatism, by nationalism and rallying behind leadership, by scapegoating, and other things. Human nature during times of plenty are characterized by sexual liberalism, idealism/altruism/moralism, democracy, and other things.

The most dramatic example of the “misfortune” instinct taking hold was Germany after world war I. Germany was among the mightiest and richest countries, and within a few short decades was impoverished. A people that go through such a fall naturally had their minds click a certain way. More modern examples abound. Middle easterners, who are taught the might of the old caliphates, are also struck by their present condition. Even the divide between red states and blue can be traced back to their stagnant non-urban economies. Their support for the President, for conservative social values, and for war, abound.

The most dramatic examples of the “fortune” instincts were the carefree children of the winners of WWII. The hippies. But the benefactors of the recent urban prosperity also wear the same stripes, worrying so much about the environment and gay rights. It’s no surprise that the richest countries from the ancient world, such as the Greek city-states, were also big on gay sex, democracy, and spoke much of doing the right thing.

Some of the interactions in these instincts is surprising. Rich old businessmen might be supposed to be under the spell of the instincts of fortune. Yet obviously they’re not. The reason is that business is a bitch. You spend your time dreaming about the money you might make, and remorsing about the money you didn’t. To say nothing of economic cycles. It’s much more stressful than a steady paycheck. Another non-obvious interaction is the fate of blacks following the civil-rights movement. It might seem natural that they would turn hippie-like, yet violence among them soared. This is because the fortune of real gains was offset by the constant talk of how poorly-off their lot was. The misfortune instinct couldn’t help but kick in. Also, the difference between Iraq and Afghanistan after their respective wars can also be explained. Afghanistan had reasonable peace and a wholesale enthusiasm for democracy because their country went from decade-long unending war to mere ordinary poverty. Feelings of fortune were high. Iraq, meanwhile, was quite prosperous during the 80s, it was conservative and somewhat liberal. A decade of devastating economic sanctions (thanks, Clinton) however turned that whole boat around. Going from high to low triggered a feeling of misfortune. A complete fuck-up of the reconstruction (thanks, Bush) cemented the point and caused chaos.
The presence of the transcendent, baffling, timeless dichotomy between “conservatives” and “liberals” can be traced to a fundamental, essentially instinctual, mechanism. That is why there is a very recognizable linear continuum, instead of a mishmash of permutations of beliefs. (Seriously, how many pro-sex, pro-war demographic groups have you seen?)

Many of the changes are rather obvious, from an evolutionary perspective. When times get tough, go to war. But it’s not all self-evident. The tie-in with sexuality is surprising (though one can speculate), and the way the emphasis on virtue/morality/democracy changes also gives pause.
Anyway, this is the first thing that sociologists should have understood and recognized. Have they yet? Actually, I don’t know. It doesn’t seem so. People keep talking about these issues of liberals vs conservatives since time immemorial, and I’ve never seen anyone explain it in a great context. For all I know, sociology has missed on grabbing the absolutely lowest-hanging fruit. The fruit that would have given some basic fucking answers. Even Galbraith, who wrote a book how economic growth leads to good things, didn’t grok the whole picture. It’s not exactly about money.

30

Alex_Dubinsky: I agree with your observations. I’ve thought along the same lines.

31

Your proposed correlation of circumstances of plenty yielding liberal and experimental attitudes doesn’t seem to have played out in Saudi Arabia where (relative) times of plenty for the population across the last half century has not yielded much in the way of progressive attitudes. If anything their material wealth has allowed them to perpetuate and reinforce the most conservative elements of their culture.

32

Right, but I think that’s sort of what people see in sociology, as well as (pop-)psychology. There are way too many people out there who will happily tell you their Theory of People as gospel truth, without a whole lot of testing. I’m not particularly well-acquainted with sociology, but psychology has a huge image problem. There are enormous amounts of real, scientific work going on, but what most people are aware of is the self-help section, which is much closer to astrology. Now, that’s not to say psychology isn’t a science - I’d say it can be, like anything else. Science is a method, not a subject.

Now, since I don’t know anything about the state of sociology, the way I interpret the question is, ‘Are the majority of sociologists doing science, or is most of it just theory with no testing?’ Generally, the sociology I’m familiar with consists of a brief summary of an experiment, and then a lengthy interpretation (mostly it seemed like the people writing papers were not the people doing experiments, so they were just grabbing the experiments that they wanted, and came up with a just-so story). That, to me, isn’t science. There’s a kernel of science, but most of it is just navel-gazing. So, is that true of most sociology, or just the little bits and pieces I read in my sociology of architecture class?

33

Who ever made that statement? No science only makes “accurate” predictions. However, all sciences do progressively refine their models, or throw them away completely in a paradigm shift, so that they eventually make predictions that correspond to observation more and more accurately. Hence my question. If this isn’t happening in sociology, the question “is sociology a science” is misguided, and the more pertinent question is “what is the point of sociology?”

My own working definition of a science is a field of study that posits natural explanations for all phenomena and adheres to the scientific method. Unless we all come to agreement on what constitutes a science, the thread can’t proceed, but, IMO, definitions like “A field of study dedicated to finding answers about how the world works” are so broad as to be useless, as they are agnostic about how those answers are found!

That answers my question. Thanks.

34

You may not have said it explicitly, but your statements like

keep emphasizing that you believe a science needs to make predictions in order to be considered a science. Predictions are useful in some scientific areas like astronomy and meteorology, but it is not an intrinsic feature of the scientific discipline. Biology, for example, doesn’t make predictions. Neither does medicine. Would you therefore ask “What is the point of biology? Of medicine?”

35

Which completely ignores the history of active resistance to the rise of the NSDAP and how much work the Nazis actually had to do in order to overcome and smash that resistance in the first place. This is the unscientific sociology people are talking about.

If the wealth in Saudi Arabia were distributed anywhere close to equitably, then this argument might have some merit. But the opposite is true - billions of dollars of oil wealth are concentrated in the hands of a tiny minority extremely interested in maintaining the status quo. This is to say nothing of the history of these countries, founded through the direct intervention of the Great Powers who didn’t care what the local leaders believed as long as they were willing to play ball on the oil concessions.

Scientific sociology takes such historical factors into consideration and doesn’t look simply at the current situation and extrapolate solely from that.

36

Sorry, one last thing.

That’s more statistics that sociology, and ignores human factors such as the unexpected death of the local candidate, or the eruption of a political scandal that seriously damages someone’s reputation. Furthermore, how would this prediction explain a break of significantly less than 88% under any circumstances? Besides hiding behind the thin excuse of “fuzzy math”?

37

How can anything be a science and not make predictions? It’s inherent in the scientific method—how else can a theory be falsified if not through making a prediction which can be tested empirically and either refuted or accepted?

And biology and medicine don’t make predictions? What are you talking about?

38

All science is statistics + domain knowledge. Statistics is the logic of the sciences.

39

But that’s those people’s problem, not sociology’s. I know not a single person trained as a sociologist who would claim that their overarching theories or their analytical conclusions constitute “gospel truth,” in the sense of being absolute and irrefutable.

The problem with both sociology and psychology is that, to a considerable extent, the stuff that makes it into mainstream popular discourse is precisely the the less analytically rigorous, but more rhetorically confident kind. Most of the people who read self-help books or other popular sociological and psychological works aren’t particularly interested in the deep intellectual and methodological questions and debates that are at the professional core of the issues they are reading about. So the simplistic, assertive, easily-understood stuff is what makes it to the shelves of Barnes and Noble.

While plenty of people love to ridicule academia, call it “out of touch” and “ivory tower” and “not part of the real world,” the fact is that a huge amount of the knowledge we have about the universe and about the human condition originates in universities, and is researched and studied and debated at a level that only slowly filters into the general, popular understanding. There’s nothing wrong with that; the fact that most people don’t have the time, the interest, or the energy to immerse themselves in academic scholarly literature is completely understandable. The fact that some scholarly analysis and understanding is watered down or simplified for the general reader is also fine. But that doesn’t mean that the popular is a direct copy of the scholarly, or that the popular’s excessive self-confidence and its definitive conclusions are indicative of academic hubris.

I dunno.

Do you think that someone reads the Lynds’ Middletown gains some understanding of the human condition? Or what about, say, the extensive literature on the sociology of the professions, which does not simply theorize and speculate, but examines how professions work internally, and how they relate to other professions and to society, and draws conclusions about the nature of professionalization and about questions of power, authority, and control of knowledge. Hell, the literature on the medical professions alone is huge, and much of it involves large amounts of data and observation.

It seems to me that, for people interested in actually reading this stuff, it does contribute to our understanding of the human condition.

If sociologists reduced their understanding to the type of ahistorical, simplistic, reductionist dichotomy you present here, they would probably deserve the sort of societal contempt that some people seem to have for them. Luckily, they tend to be a little more intellectually rigorous.

40

I was a complete cynic as far as sociology was concerned until my ex was doing a (U.K.)teaching degree and it was one of the subjects.

What I saw of it I found surprisingly insightful and also included a strong element of common sense.

But to be fair my aquaintence with it was not indepth so my opinion cant really be counted on scientifically.