SociologyIs sociology a science?

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litteacher8's profile pic

litteacher8 | High School Teacher | (Level 3) Distinguished Educator

Posted on

Social sciences are not the same as other sciences. Science seeks to explore and explain phenomena though, and social science does too. The difference is that people are unpredictable and their behavior cannot easily be explained by experiments or studies.
pohnpei397's profile pic

pohnpei397 | College Teacher | (Level 3) Distinguished Educator

Posted on

Not really, in my opinion.  Social sciences can't truly be scientific.  It's too difficult to differentiate between correlation and causation, for example.  When we deal with things that go on inside multiple people's heads, it's too hard to really know anything.  For example, we can have different theories about the causes of the London Riots.  But how do you prove any of them?  I just don't think that there is the possibility of certainty the way there is with the hard sciences.

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