Amanda Liston Mrs.

Moran Aice Sociology Period 1 9/10/12 Sociology a science When it comes to sociology, Auguste Comte was the man who coined the term sociology. Comte was very interested in natural science; which are also called positivists. Positivists believe that the study of society can and should based on the same principles and procedures as the natural sciences. Through research and with the support of the scientific method, positivists generally try to seek the cause and effects of phenomenas happing in society. Many positivists would aim to discover tendencies rather then laws. They mostly observe society to try to identify patterns and discover the causes of how society works. For example, they can generally identify the patterns of how society works. For insistence, they can view the rates of crime and suicide. They believe that you should study human behavior

Positivists believe that if they use the scientific method they can predict the future just like making an theory or hypothesis. However, in sociology positivists should be carefully in researching. Positivists must use quantitative method because they are able to rely on the researchers data who wants to repeat their experiment. There are three key concepts with science in sociology: reliability, validity, and representatives. Each contribute to doing natural scientific observations and experiments accurately. Positivism sees empiricism as the only valid form of human knowledge. In contrast to positivism, interpretivist believes that there is a fundamental difference between the natural and social sciences. Interpretivists believe that humans attach meaning to their actions. They reject the way they see determinism in the positivist view of human behavior. Interpretivists oppose the positivists view on thinking that natural sciences are objective and value free. Positivists see natural science as inductive reasoning that applies to the study of observing patterns. Not everyone accepts the positivists approach on natural sciences but a good amount of sociologists, historians, and philosophers see a different picture of science. The study of meaningful social action shows how

interpretivist would view how sociologists need to understand what people mean by crime. They would try to see what to categorize certain actions as criminal and then investigate who comes to be seen as criminal in a particular society. In conclusion, there are different views in which sociologists think sociology is a science. While positivists favor natural sciences, interpretivists reject the view of sociology being scientific. The main division between positivism and interpretivism is the disagreement of subject matters and the nature of sociology. As positivists see sociology as the study of causes, they approach social facts as causing people to behave as they do. Positivists see this as equal to natural sciences. I believe that sociology is a science because it describes the interpretation of how positivism shows how they use scientific methods to analyze society and how to predict the future. Science is apart of sociology that can be and should be on the same principles and research methods as the natural sciences. Sociology uses the scientific method to describe society and most hypotheses must be retested to make sure it is true.