SOC211H5 Chapter Notes -Xyy Syndrome, Heritability, Sociobiology
Document Summary
Ch. 5 biological and physiological explanations of deviance: the body did it. Positivism (sometimes also called scientism) is based on the belief that the methods of natural science should be adapted to the study of human beings. Positivist theory assumes that knowledge can be discovered only through sensory experience, observation, and experiment. It"s early proponents claimed, sometimes only half-truthfully, that they employed the scientific method of sampling, controls, and analysis. Positivism and the positive school of criminology it gave rise to represents what kuhn (1970) terms a paradigm shift. It constituted a new kind of lens through which human nature and human behavior could be understood. Positivists assume that, underlying al empirical reality, there are discoverable laws that can be used to explain everything in nature, including human behavior. The english philosopher herbert spencer (1820-1903) coined the phrase survival of the fittest to describe the implications of evolutionary theory for human society.
