Sociology and Science.

Sociology and Science.

1. Positivism.

   • sociology is a science.
   • Verificationism.
     • Apple falling to the ground.
     • Macro approach because it see's society and its structure.
   • Objective quantitative data.
     • Researchers should be detached and objective.
     • water boils at 100 degrees Celsius whether the scientist likes that fact or not.
   • Positivism and suicide.
     • Durkheim - Protestants and Catholics. patterns could not be the prduct of the motives of individuals but were social facts.

2. Interpretivism.

   • Sociology is not a science.
   • The subject matter of Sociology.
     • We can only understand it by successfully interpreting the meaning and motives of the actors involved.
       • Mead - argued humans interpret the meaning of a stimulus and then choose how to respond to it.
         • Red light.
     • We construct our social world by the meaning we give to it. The job of the sociologist is to uncover these meanings.
   • Verstehen and qualitative research.
     • Weber - we must put ourselves in the place of the actor. This will give us their meanings.
   • Interpretivism and suicide.
     • Douglas - rejects official statistics as they are a social construct on how coroners label certain deaths as suicides.
       • We should use qualitative data as it reveals the actors meaning and gives us a better idea of they real rate of suicide then the official statistics.
         • Atkinson - argues that that we can never know the real rate of suicide since we can never know for sure the meanings the deceased held.
   • Postmodernism feminism and scientific sociology.
     • natural sciences are a 'meta - narrative' and scientist sociology makes false claims.
       • Feminist agree as it is a form of domination that excludes many groups of women.

3. Karl Popper: how science grows.

   • The fallacy of induction.
     • We should reject verificationism. Swans making generalisation that they are all white.
       • We can never prove a theory is true simply by producing more observations that support or 'verity' it.
   • Falsificationism.
     • We must be able to say what evidence would count as falsifying the statement when we come to put it to the test. For example a test of gravity when we let go of an object it did not fall.
   • Criticism and the open society.
     • Sees science as a public activity as it is open to criticism. This is why scientific knowledge grows so rapidly.
       • Popper argues that science thrives in 'open' or liberal societies. where people can show free expression and the right the challenge accepted ideas.

4. Thomas Kuhn: Scientific paradigms.

   • The paradigm.
     • Shared by members of a given scientific community and defines what their science is.