Sociology as a Science
Sociology deals with the ways that social structure and culture are related. Social structure is definied by a variety of ideas. The structure of a society can be seen as the society's organization, such as its religious, political, or economical institutions, rules, routines, and relationships that create the society. Social culture deals more with the beliefs and values of the society. Sociology is seen by some as a science, where facts can be obtained by collecting data, and hypotheses can become theorems. As a science, sociology would have to be value-free, and sociologists, as scientists, should not be interested in changing society; rather, they must be interested in observing and explaining it. Others believe that sociology, as a study of the groups of people, should be used to aid in the creation of a better society, and therefore sociologists should be obliged to alter and possibly fix society. This paper will assert that sociology should remain a science which seeks to explain the world. The concept of sociology as a science is supported both by the founding fathers of the field and by contemporary minds. These leading sociologists, such as Emile Durkheim, Max Weber, and Peter Berger, support the scientific aspects of so
Sociologists of the present also share in the ideas of sociology's founding fathers. Peter Berger is one of the well known contemporary sociologists in the vein of Durkheim and Weber. Berger asserts that there are six "ambiguities" about sociologists. These ambiguities give people the wrong idea of what a sociologist really is. The images include the ideas of socioloists as humanitarians, theoreticians for social work, social reformers, and as "detached, sardonic observer[s], and cold manipulator[s] of men". Although he also states that the sociologist as a scientist and statistician is another ambiguity, he believes that this ambiguity is true, although not to the extent of some people's belifs. For example, people falsely believe that sociologists use "intellectual barbarism", or difficult jargon, to appear more scientific. Berger states that there may be a degree of truth to the fact that there are new, difficult terms involved with sociology. He believes, however, that this is true about any scientific field, and that it is natural for a science to develop its own terminology. He further states that "terminology is possibly even more important for the sociol sciences, just because their subject matter IS familiar and just because words DO exist to denote it". Since sociology is a topic that is so closely related to the human being, it is therefore important that sociology "can be presented in intelligible English". Sociology is a very young science. It follows that, as a new field, it will be difficult at first to separate one's moral and religious values from the topic. This difficulty can also be seen in the beginnings of cosmology, the study of the universe. The religous thought that all planets and the sun revolved around the earth, which was said to be located at the center of the universe, had a great impact on scientific research that had stated otherwise. Ptolemy created the first accepted model of the universe in the second century AD. Although his research showed that planetary orbit paths would have been quite simple if they in fact traveled around the sun, he chose to believe that the planets revolve in, as Stephen Hawking states, "smaller spheres attached to their respective circles". Furthermore, in order fo
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Approximate Word count = 1513
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)
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