Sociology is a sciene
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- Created by: Darblu07
- Created on: 08-09-16 16:32
Popper (1959, 1963)
- Falsification - proving the hypothesis wrong.
- The idea is, if you can't prove a hypothesis, it is 100% correct.
- " ' All swans are white' isnt proved correct by seeing one flock of white swans".
- Popper believed that it wasnt possible to know 'absolute truth' = can't prove things are correct.
- Criticisms
- Later philosephers of science points out experimental results that disagrees with hypothesis because of experiment errors.
- It doesn't mean you're proved wrong = means there was a mistake made.
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Kuhn (1962)
- Kuhn agrees with logical positivists and Popper.
- Paradigm refers to framework of accepted ideas in which scientist operate.
- The paradigm / theories are challene theories within.
- Paradigm shift = safe to not safe. An evolution. The normal science is disproved by revolutionary science.
Evaluation
- Kuhn argues that scientists tend to work within the paradigm - as strong as to trigger a paradigm shift.
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Feyerabend (1975)
- He claimed that there weren't no rules in scientific methods.
- Argued that scientists make tweaks to theorist to make them work.
- Theories influence the way scientist actually observes facts.
- He disagreed with the idea that science tests hypotheses according to whether they fit observed fatcs.
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Disagreement whether Sociology is scientific
Comte (1798-1857)
- He thought of it as a science = should be used to develop a rational theory of society.
Popper
- Said that some sociological concepts weren't scientific as they couldn't possibly be proved wrong.
- Sociology can only be a science if it made hypothesis which could be falsified.
Kuhn
- Argues that sociology doesn't have a paradigm - there isnt a consensus as to what its about and how its done.
- In his view, it doesn't count as a science.
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Sociology is more subjective than traditional scie
- Objective knowledge is the same no matter what your point of view.
- Objective research is also value-free and doesnt have any bias.
- Subjective knowledge depends on your point of view.
- Sociology is more subjective than the physical sciences, but aims to be at least partly objective.
Lyotard (1984)
- Claim that its impossibl to be objective at all. He sees knowledge as something that people construct not something that people discover.
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Positivist Sociology tries to be as objective as p
- Positivists think socioloigy should be scientific and analyse social facts.
- Positivists look for correlations in data, cause and effect relationships using quantitative methods such as questionnaires, official statistics which are objective and reliable.
- Interpretivist sociologists believe sociology does not suit scientific methods as they try and understand and empathise with human behaviour and social interaction.
- Humans cannot be measured using numbers.
- Weber - 'Verstehen' - the iea research must use empathy.
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Gomm (1982)
- Argues that theories scientists produce are in part a product of their social context.
- Scientists tend to try and prove rather than falsify their theories.
- Gomm gave the example of Darwin and his theory of evolution.
- Gomm emphasised the importance of placing 'science' in its social context.
- Scientific knowledge can be atleast in part as socially constructed.
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Lynch (1983)
- Argues that science is far less objective than scientists claim.
- He studied scientists experimenting on lab rats and concluded that the scientists were more influenced by their existing theores than may have been expected.
- When anomalies occured - the scientists often put them down to errors in the photographs.
- They were studying, rather than seeing them as evidence towards a new thoery or hypothesis.
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Key terms
Free market
- No restriction posed on the compaties by the government so they can charge exactly what they want for the product they are selling to the consumers.
Individualism
- People are free to pursue business freely to make gains for themselves and not the government. The American Dream, anyone can be anything.
Multivariate analysis
- Any statistical technique used to analyze data that arises from more than one variable.
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