Science Of Sociology Essay

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Science of Sociology
There are a number of different definitions of ‘sociology’ and they all have the fundamental idea of “the ways in which society operates”. It can be described more formally as the study of the development, structure and function of human society. Sociology is unlike some other sciences, such as mathematics, where a series of propositions will usually lead to definite conclusions. Sociology is often defined as a social science because it deals with the ways in which human beings interact with each other. It looks at the ways in which people make decisions about other people and why they interact in that way. In society, there is often room for disagreement because of differences and unpredictability in the ideas and behaviour …show more content…

Part of the problem is that we mostly rely on secondary data and it is very difficult to determine what bias there may be in the evidence. Also, there may be far too many variables to include them all in the data used as evidence. For instance, if we try to compare men and women’s health, some facts are easy to quantify, with a few exceptions, such as people being on a life support machines. However if we ask someone whether they are well, the answer is very much subject to personal judgement. For example a common phrase is ‘women have colds but men have flu’. An explanation for why men do not live as long as women could be that they are more reluctant to seek help when they are experiencing symptoms of illness. Diagnoses of illnesses are subject to changes in our knowledge and different doctors taking different points of view.
Scientific knowledge
Scientific knowledge is information obtained using scientific methods when investigating something. Sociologists would be interested in using such knowledge as it can be applied to see the different outcomes of certain situations. Some sociologists would suggest that we always have to test existing data to ensure that we are up to date with our thinking. This has applied to both the social sciences and the natural sciences.
Positivism and

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