Philosopher Karl Popper argued that it is impossible to prove a scientific theory true by induction because no amount of evidence assures that contrary evidence will not be found. Instead, he suggested that proper science is accomplished by deduction. Instead of looking for the proof of their hypothesis, scientists should look for their disproof. This involves the process of falsification by following a particular set of methodological procedures. In order for sociology to be a science, Popper proposed that it should be based on the hypothetico-deductive method. He believed that the longer a theory has yet to be falsified, the closer it is likely to be the truth instead of science being able to provide the final, undisputable truth. Similar to positivists, Karl Popper believed it was possible for sociology to be scientific, only if it based on the deductive method.
On the contrary, Interpretivists argue that sociology cannot be a part of natural science as there is a clear distinction between the subject matter, that is humans have consciousness. People apply meaning to the world, and so sociology should not even try to be scientific. Interpretivists argue that human behavior is taken to be meaningful and so cannot be understood in the same way as natural phenomena can be as people attach meaning to their social actions. According to Weber, the cause of a social action can only be discovered through the understanding of the meaning attached to it, he labeled this understanding as verstehen. Human thoughts and ideas are not that simple, they have meaning to it. If someone is to commit suicide then there must be a meaning behind it. It cannot be assumed, yet it cannot be discovered since the real reason cannot be obtained. This challenged Durkheim’s study of suicide, which relied on correlation between official statistics to discover the cause of suicide. Whilst the event of 11th September 2001 are seen by most as an act of terrorism, to those committing the acts they most likely had an entirely different meaning. Therefore, scientific methods such as experiments are inappropriate for studying human behavior, as it requires subjective understanding because it is difficult to study emotion, attitudes, thoughts and feelings. Hence, interpretivists prefer qualitative methods such as observation as it uncovers the meaning behinds social action and emphasize validity.
Furthermore, findings of natural science are reliable. Unlike natural matter, humans do not react in a causal like way to external forces as claimed by positivists. This is because physical matter such as rocks and chemicals give the exact same results to exact stimuli. However, human behavior cannot be a science because of the ambiguous nature of their behavior. Each individual possess free will and act individually so their actions are unpredictable. Since each individual acts based on their own consciousness, it is difficult to generalize human behavior. It canot be guaranteed that a society in a certain region would react the exact same way of another society in a different region. Moreover, conditions of a research cannot be replicated easily. Natural sciences have the benefit of being able to control its variables, however there are several factors that affect human behavior and it is difficult to isolate them since human possess free will. Therefore, it is difficult to replicate a study. For instance, William Foote Whyte could not possibly repeat his study of the Italian slum with the exact same conditions and activities observed in of the street corner society.
Interpretivists see the world as a largely socially constructed place. Interpretivists reject the methods of natural science as objective observation and measurement of the social world are not possible. For example it is difficult to get reliable statistics on health and crime because the data is dependent on members of public reporting their illness or crimes they observe meaning that even statistics are social constructions. Also, statistics are simply the product of categorization. Instead of studying the categories itself, interpretivists study the way that the members of society categorize the world around them.
To an interpretivist, reality is too complicated for numbers and quantitative analysis to be made. Qualitative methods are essential for a full understanding of social reality. Scientific objectivity cannot be upheld using these qualitative methods that require a level of subjective thought. Human behavior which involves emotions such as happiness cannot be quantified. Science is objective, scientists strive to prevent their personal values from affecting their investigation. Interpretivists therefore reject the claim to being objective when studying human behavior as done in natural science. Interpretivists should involve, not detach itself in order to perceive the social world. In their view, no human being can totally suspend his or her own cultural assumptions and frameworks of thought without producing a distorted and humanless version of reality. If methods of natural science should apply, the social scientist merely imposes his interpretation n a situation, ignoring the views and motives of those involved.
Sociology should not be a science because methods of natural science should not be applied. This is because physical matter of the world has “one real truth” it’s results are fixed. For instance, natural science would explain why the sky is blue, because the air molecules absorb all frequencies of visible light except those of the blue spectrum. As for sociology, assume a person is staring up at the sky, can a sociologists give one definite answer to that action? He/she could be watching the clouds or be in deep thought about something else. It is difficult to discover the meaning behind an action as several factors could lead to an event unlike the natural science. Effects of reactivity on sociological research were illustrated in an experiment on worker productivity conducted at the Hawthorne Plant of the Western Electric Company by Elton Mayo. The experiment was conducted by controlling variables such as better lighting, more rest periods and shorter working days. Then, the productivity increased. To the researcher’s surprise, even after reversing the improvements, productivity continued to increase. The workers were only trying to impress the researchers. This type of reactivity is referred to as the Hawthorne effect – the attention that people receive because they are involved in a scientific inquiry may alter their behavior. The subject matter studied by the natural science has only one real truth, for human behavior however there is no one real truth, there could be many reasons for an action, an action could bring about not one but several other effects.
Also, sociology should not be a science because a non scientific approach generates data that is highly valid, insightful and achieves verstehen. For example interpretivist feminists, Dobash gained a true and detailed understanding of women’s experience of domestic violence by carrying out informal interviews which lasted for up to twelve hours. Interpretivists believes that sociology must produce interpretive understanding in-depth methods. The fact that sociology should not be a science is strengthen by Thomas Khun’s concept of ideological paradigm. This is a fixed or set of belief that most of the community believes that is true and therefore interprets all scientific findings from that viewpoint. But Khun also said that for a subject to be really considered a science, it should at least have a prevailing paradigm, an overriding belief system that most practitioners believe. Sociology is pre-paradigm. Sociology should not be a science until it has a single paradigm agreed by all sociologists.
Methods of natural science if applies to sociology would require the sociologists to be value-free, sociology however should and would be value-laden to a certain extent. Social scientists realize that their personal values can and probably will bias their research. All research is inevitably subjective (value laden). For example the topic that is chosen for research, questions asked in interviews and the way that data is analyzed is based on the sociologist’s values. Max Weber argued that sociology should remain as value-free as possible because human values can distort sound scientific investigation. However, suspension is difficult to accomplish but that abandoning the effort would be disastrous. Karl Marx opposed Weber as he thought that social scientists should bring strong moral commitments to their work and use science to change inequitable or immoral social conditions. Some sociologists today believe that social research should be guided by personal and political values and directed toward alleviating social problems. Alvin Gouldner suggested a reasonable middle ground. He agreed that scientists have values and that the influence of those values on research is often very subtle, never can be totally eliminated. He proposed that we should deny neither our values nor the negative impact they can have on research. He urged scientists should be explicit about what their values are. This way, other scientists are forewarned and are better able to spot ways in which research findings may be influenced by personal bias. Science has built-in checks against the influence of personal bias. Science is provisional and studies are often repeated. Many scientists holding different values whom reach similar conclusions, we can be reasonable confidant that he conclusions are not biased by personal values. Natural science aims at understanding why certain factors bring about an effect. Sociology on the other hand aims at understanding human behavior to improve social life.
On the other hand, Sociology should be a science as it can encourage the progress of the subject and adopt many useful methods from natural sciences to observe social life such as the quantitative method to gather information from a questionnaire. It is not a natural science as there is no objective truth in Sociology unlike the natural science where the distinction between right and wrong is very clear. To realist sociologists Keat and Urry, Marxist sociology is scientific as it provides models of underlying structures which are evaluated in the light of empirical evidence. Unlike positivists, realists do not automatically reject interpretive sociology as unscientific because they believe that studying unobservable events are all perfectly compatible with a scientific subject. Durkheim’s study of suicide proved that method of natural science, quantifying human behavior can establish laws of human behavior.
In conclusion, Sociology cannot be considered as a natural science as it differs in terms of experiment procedures and data collecting. Value free judgments do not apply in Sociology. However, it should be a science but not under the same category. Because human behavior is complex, a more in depth observation analysis is needed. Sociology is an interpretive subject and requires a more in depth analysis. Therefore, it should be considered as a social science.
