Sociology & the Scientific Method: Crash Course Sociology #3
What puts the “science” in social science? Today we'll explore positivist sociology and how sociologists use empirical evidence to explore questions about the social world. We'll also...
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What puts the “science” in “social science”? The things you probably think of as “science” – like biology, or physics, or chemistry – can seem a world apart from sociology and the concepts we’ve introduced so far. But sociology is a type of science; it’s just not one that uses beakers or microscopes. Rather than investigating the physical, natural world, sociology explores the social world. Now, there are different schools of thought within sociology about the best way to understand the social world. But one of the primary means of conducting sociology uses many of the same, basic principles and methods as any of your hard, clinical sciences. Can sociology use the scientific method? Check. Does it rely on empirical data? Check. And graphs? ...
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What puts the “science” in “social science”? The things you probably think of as “science” – like biology, or physics, or chemistry – can seem a world apart from sociology and the concepts we’ve introduced so far. But sociology is a type of science; it’s just not one that uses beakers or microscopes. Rather than investigating the physical, natural world, sociology explores the social world. Now, there are different schools of thought within sociology about the best way to understand the social world. But one of the primary means of conducting sociology uses many of the same, basic principles and methods as any of your hard, clinical sciences. Can sociology use the scientific method? Check. Does it rely on empirical data? Check. And graphs? ...
