Is sociology a science?
Yes, sociology is a science
No, sociology is not a science
Popper - sociology does not operate as a true science because it does not follow methodological processed used in science.
It depends - sociology is not currently a science but could be
Keat & Urry (Realists) - some natural sciences operate in open systems, just as sociology does, so sociology should not be considered any less scientific than meteorology, oceanography, etc
Positivists - a methodological approach which uses the scientific method to identify a causative variable
Critique of Durkheim - used inductive reasoning in the first stage of his Suicide study - does this show that sociological research requires an elemnet of inductive bottoms up reasoning (interterpretivist persspective) - he needs a starting point which is only gathered using inductive reasoning - therefore soicology not compltely scientific?
Why are you even asking me this question? What is a science in the first place? Metanarratives are meaningless in post-modern society. Get lost
Kuhn
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Post modernists - criticise the idea of 'science' in the first place - reject sociology as a science because they reject all disciplines that claim to be a ‘science’.
Interpretivists
Good science = using falsificationism (trying to prove your hypothesis false) - sociology is largely based on verificationism (eg positivists try to gather evidence to support their hypotheses) therefore cannot operate as a true science
uncertainty and unpredictability are not characteristics of all sciences.
Poststructuralist feminists - evidence that science is just a meta narrative (a story) rather than something objectively true - Western middle-class men created the scientific method during the Englightenment project (discourses) so science is widely male centric and based on their values/what they thought was correct - science can negatively affect women, other minority groups, and the planet (eg fossil fuels)
eg seat belts not being tested on women, drugs not tested on black women, black women more likely to die during childbirth
Lyotard - science is a meta narrative which falsely claims to have identified objective laws - in reality there is no objective truth, only subjective meaning - science is based on subjective meaning on middle-class men in Enlightenment project...