They also use official statistics, which are objective and reliable. Science is about getting the right answers every time an experiment is done, however if scientists get the wrong answer then they have done the experiment wrong, or if you have the right answer but it will be dismissed as scientists have proven the correct answer is different to yours. In sociology it is difficult to get a wrong or right answer, as the experiment cannot often be redone as the variables can not be controlled, were as laboratory experiments can be redone as many times as it's needed.
Weber explains, anything that has hierarchy system or some sort of rules/ regulations to follow is going to be scientific, and sociology has these. Therefore sociology must be a science. He also uses the term disenchantment to why sociology should be seen as a science, religion is loosing its mysticism because it cannot prove anything therefore religion is getting replaced by science, because science can bring proof of things what have happened etc. Also, more people look into science now instead because religion has lost its significance. However sociologists can contradict this argument with rationalisation. As explained above, people want proof within their belief system, but science cannot explain miracles.
Some scientists disagree that science should be given a special status and all other forms of knowledge disregarded. Gould (1999) proposes that science and religion are two separate realms. Science provides certain knowledge about the world, whereas moral guidance is the responsibility of religion. This is a relativist view, which sees science as just one of many beliefs, all of which are equally valid. They agree to a certain extent that sociology is and should be seen as a science. Realists claim that positivists and popper have failed to define science accurately. They believe that science can have a lack of precision, for example, doctors cannot predict with a certainty who will become ill, and sociology has similar problems. Sociologists can’t be expected to predict exactly what the divorce rate will be in a couple of years. Popper believes that a theory proven correct cannot be correct all of the time; he believes that scientists do indeed spend much of their time experimentally finding that the results of their tests agree with the predictions of their theories, it is only when experimental results are inconsistent with a hypothesis, falsifying it, that a new hypothesis is likely to be formulated. He says that scientists without knowing twist their experiments or observations to generate the results they expect, to avoid the replacement of old theories by new ones.
However, if sociology where to be a science, sociology would have to be value-free, and sociologists, as scientists, should not be interested in changing society, they should be more interested in observing and explaining society. Interpretive sociologists claim that there is a difference between sociology and natural science. They think that sociology doesn’t suit scientific methods. They believe that humans are active, conscious beings who make choices therefore research cannot be objective. They try to understand human behaviour from the point of view of the individual, so they use methods that let them discover the meanings, motives and reasons behind human behaviour and social interaction. What makes a social event social is that those involved in it give it broadly the same meaning, Weber's account of the growth of capitalism is a good example, it showed not only that Calvinism was the independent variable (cause), only present in Europe, but also how a belief in Calvinism would make someone behave in the way he described. It follows that if we want to understand peoples' actions we have first to understand them in the way that the participants do.
Some sociologists believe that science has no more claims on the truth than any other belief system. Scientists are human beings at the end of the day, and no human being can be 100% correct. Also, all scientists will be subjective in their research, even if they say they are not.
Anti-Positivist, Kuhn says that sociology should not be seen as a science because sociologists do not agree on one accepted paradigm. Postmodernists believe that science is just a Meta narrative claiming to provide comprehensive explanations of the world, and also claim a monopoly of truth. They believe that science has lost its authority in society, as it has failed to provide cures for many of the killer degenerative diseases in western society, such as cancer and heart disease.
