SOC 101

SHORT PAPER


TOPIC: IS SOCIOLOGY A SCIENCE?


SUBMITTED BY:
MAHIN HOSSAIN
BRAC BUSINESS SCHOOL
ID: 13304019

COURSE INSTRUCTOR:
S.M. SHAMSUL ALAM

SUBMISSION DATE
12.02.2014


IS SOCIOLOGY A SCIENCE?


Science came from the word SCIENTIA. Which means Knowledge. To define the term
SCIENCE it can be said that it is a knowledge which is attained through study or practice.
Science refers to a system which is concerned with the physical world and also refers to a system
of acquiring knowledge. This system uses observations and experimentations to describe each
and everything. The term science also refers to the organized body of knowledge people have
gained using that system. There are two major fields of science natural sciences, the study of the
natural world and Social sciences, the systematic study of human behavior and society.

In my opinion, SOCIOLOGY is science. Because it studies the human behavior. If we explore
the word SOCIOLOGY we can see a term THE SCIENTIFIC STUDY. Though many
people do not agree that sociology is science as it is not as the hard sciences such as chemistry,
biology or physics. I think both types of science need the same fundamental inquiry. Auguste
Comte claimed that sociology uses four different kinds of methodologies such as observation,
experiment, comparison and historical research as a special case of comparison. These are the
methodology used in several other scientific field especially in biology. Moreover sociology has
an object to study, and a methodology for studying it. So from this point of view it can be said
that sociology is a science.
It is a fact that study of social occurrences is very difficult and by nature it cannot be like other
sciences. But it is not correct to say that sociology is not science. Many would say that sociology
is not a science because its prediction is not always accurate. There is a science called
METROLOGY. Which is the science of measurement. If sociology is not a science because its
predictions are not accurate then metrology is also not science as it fails to give accurate
measurements sometime.

There are more reasons for calling sociology a science. There are many experiments conducted
in sociology using different scientific methods. Moreover like other scientists like psychologists,
a sociologist is also concerned about the people on adjusting the difficulties of life. In science,
different experiments are done in the laboratory for measuring the relationship between two
things where in sociology it is done by making different statistics. Sociologists also used to
compare between groups, communities and societies. This comparative method is also a part of
science.
In science, things do not change very rapidly. Its stable and most of the time it is predictable.
Where in sociology things are not always predictable and they also keep changing as the society
keeps changing. This is another fact why people say that sociology is not science. But there are
certain things in the society which always remains the same in every society. We can give the
example of MARRIAGE. Because in any society we go, marriage is there. It is unchangeable.
And it is a part of society and sociology.

So after looking at all the facts, I can say that sociology is a science as it experiments with a lots
of things happening in the society. It is observing them for decades to decades using scientific
methods and it is discovering new things in the society.