SOCI 210 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Social Desirability Bias, Methodology, Relativism
28 Sep 2016
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Some disagreement about whether sociology can be a science . Believe that there is one scientific method that can be used in all natural and social sciences to establish causation. Believe we can only use the scientific method on things that are directly observable. At the extreme, believe we can discover scientific laws, can make prediction. Founding figures were a bit extreme in this regard; believed there were laws that governed social relations. Interpretivism: suggests sociologists should shoot for interpretive understandings instead of laws. Suggesting that the idea of science in sociology is not appropriate because we cannot apply scientific elements to social scenarios, as the scientific method was created for physics, chemistry, etc. Extreme interpretivism: scientific method isn"t appropriate for social analysis. All data must be interpreted: wink example (if someone winks at someone, you must interpret what it means; thus arises subjectivity of interpretation, as there could be many reasons)
