SOC101Y1 Chapter Notes - Chapter 5: Twin Study, Y Chromosome, Social Status
Document Summary
Positivism (scientism) is based on the belief that methods of science shouldn"t be adapted to the study of human beings. These theories assume that knowledge can be discovered only through sensory experience, observation, and experiment. Its early proponents claimed that they employed the scientific method of sampling, controls, and analysis, though this isn"t always the case. Some of the early positivist attempts to discover the biological level of social action were crude examples of deviance in science. Positivists assume that, underlying all empirical reality, there are discoverable laws that can be used to explain everything in nature, including human behavior. A person whose every action was a symptom of dark, biological impulses, evolutionary position, and environmental forces replaced the hedonistic self-directed actor depicted in classical thought. This view argues that all behavior is determined by forces that no individual fully controls.
