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Submitted By amy91
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Is Sociology a Science?

Intro: What is Science vs. what is Sociology? The term “science” refers the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behaviour of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment.
Objectivity is seen as an important part of the scientific process, and involves value freedom and open-mindedness. Sociology may want to be a science due to modernity and the rise of technology. Scientists may be interested in how individual’s actions are influenced by the rise of technology and the secularisation of religion. Thus they may conclude that the only way in which they can be studied is through observations and experiments, such as lab experiments; which take place in controlled factors with controlled factors, as Popper suggests, science involves the hypothetico-deductive method to test through research. Also positivists argue that it should be a science when studying social facts. Arguably, Sociology wouldn’t want to be seen as a science, as the association with science connotes that we are dealing with emotionless electrons and atoms, as opposed to people with feelings and emotions. Thus some would disagree with the idea that objectivity that is associated with studying people within society, which science influences, as we are people and we cannot disconnect ourselves from society. For example, it is not simple to disconnect yourself when studying a rape or murder case.
Positivism is the view that logic, methods and procedures of natural science can be applied to the study of society with little modification, and that human behaviour is a response to external forces. They believe by keeping a modernist traditional approach to sociology, it was seen as a means to solving social problems, improving the quality of human lives and making it relatively easier to understand and prove

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