Why is sociology
so unscientific? Why is it so full of ideology, teleology, and untestable
ideas, so lacking in general, simple, and original theory applicable across
societies and history? Why is it less scientific than the classical sociology of a
century ago? Why is it less theoretical? The answer lies in the social
structure of sociology
itself. One important variable is the social location of the sociological
subject (see generally Black 2000a): For example, how close is the subject? The
scienticity of an idea-its testability, generality, simplicity, validity, and
originality-- increases with social distance from the subject until it becomes
unobservable. In other words: Scienticity is a curvilinear function of social
distance from the subject (Black 2000a). The most scientific sciences (such as
physics and astronomy) have the most distant subjects-subjects relationally,
culturally, and functionally remote and unlike the scientists who study them,
while still close enough to be observable. The least scientific sciences (such
as sociology
and psychology) have the closest subjects-very near and similar to those who
study them.
Sociology
is so unscientific because so many of its subjects are located in the
sociologist's own society and time. Rarely is the subject social life in
general or even social life in a number of times and places. Typically the
subject is domestic. The vast majority of American sociologists study only a
narrow range of human behavior in modern America, for example, and their field
might better be called Americology than sociology. Sociologists in other
countries do likewise-Canadology, Mexicology, Francology, Japanology, or
whatever. Many sociologists choose domestic subjects especially close to their
own lives, such as members of their own race, ethnicity, or gender. Some get
still closer to their subjects with intimate research methods such as
participant observation and informal interviewing. But a close subject is
scientific poison. It encourages value judgments, speculations about
subjectivity, teleological interpretations, and attributions of free will
(Black 1995: 856, n. 137; 2000a; see also Cooney 1988; Fuchs and Marshall 1998:
18-22). Classical
sociologists were different: They almost always chose more distant subjects
beyond their own society and time (such as Weber's work on the early religion
of India, China, and Israel, and Durkheim's work on the traditional religion of
Australian Aborigines). They further increased their distance by moving
nomadically from one subject to another-religion, law, ethics, suicide,
stratification, bureaucracy, authority, and so on. Classical sociologists
were therefore more scientific than modem sociologists. They also were more
theoretical.
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