Social Web Theory

Sociology is a field, which always seemed to me to lack a concrete basis for study. One of my lingering questions from studying sociology as an undergraduate was: “what was being studied in sociology” or rather “did sociology have a concrete thing to study.” A big chunk of this is no fault of the field or in the people who study it. Sociology is rife with personal biases and perspectives, which help to tamper and sway people's perspectives and conclusions about one thing or another. One can only see what one has the capacity and capability of seeing after all, and the field is full of ad infinitum examples where we can come close to the reality, but ultimately fail to understand and grasp that reality due to our own limitations and our own failings of perspective.

But don't other fields of scientific inquiry run into the same problems as sociology? Is sociology a field for scientific inquiry? If not, what is it then? These are honest questions which remained with me after I had graduated from Hobart and William Smith Colleges. And they are questions that I hope to try to answer through the course of this paper.

In order to begin questioning the scientific nature of sociology, one has to begin with the scientific nature of science. For the purposes of this paper, we will use the second definition of the word “science” from the Merriam Webster Dictionary: “a department of systematized knowledge as an object of studied; something that may be studied or learned like a systematized knowledge.”i This definition most clearly fits into what I am going to investigate, because I am precisely going to be trying to answer a question about a well regarded field of study that has already made extremely valuable contributions to our social, political and economic understandings and function. And I am being this precise with my language and my points, in order to clearly define where I am starting from when I go about doing my analysis of sociology as a science. Because as we see when we consider the philosophy of science, how you look at something determines a lot about what you see.

There are many lenses through which we can view our world and our place in our world. A sociologist will not look at the world in the same way as a biological pathologist, who will not see the world as a military historian who will not see the world as a single mother trying to support her children. This very paper is, in actuality, only the product of my own brain, and my own brain's observations, experiences and functions. But does that mean that there is no world for them to observe? Does it make each of their points moot and irrelevant? Or is there, rather, some objectivity to this world that is only subjectively viewable by our own brains and our own neural systems?
Consider a baseball. One can discuss its nature, it's color it's texture and all its other qualities in the light of subjective experiences. My neurons may not show the colors “white and red” to be the same as what you're seeing as “white and red.” You could very well be seeing what I would call “purple and green” when you look at that ball, and only call it “white and red” because that's the way you learned to call the colors that you're subjectively experiencing. But isn't there still, something called a ball for each of us to experience? Even if the differences are there, in the way we think about and experience that ball, is there still not a ball that is there that we are each experiencing subjectively in a repeatable and demonstrable fashion?

The answer, would be yes. There is a ball that is there. And there is a ball that is being experienced. And that objectivity then, only seems like an academic concept until you're all playing with the ball or your dog is playing with you and the ball, and there seems to be no reason to question the ball or its existence in the objective world that is around us. And it will continue to exist in a way that we can experience until it is somehow removed from our perceptive range of experience, either by its removal or our turning our attention away from it. That's not to say, then, that the ball does not exist without our experience. Indeed, this becomes another line of purely academic questioning as question the balls existence in the first place. You can argue and discuss and think about the ball's qualities. It is interesting to think about what happens to things when we're not perceiving or experiencing them in the world around us. But when push comes to shove, for the purposes of this paper, we are going to shelve such questions for another time, and focus on the apparent objectivity of the world in which we are living and are apart of in order to concentrate on that central question of “is sociology a science to begin with?”

So what does this objectivity mean for science, let alone, for sociology as a science? It means that there is, actually, something which then exists beyond what our brains see and experience, and beyond what they subjectively produce for us. There is not merely stuff “in” our brains or simply “out” of them which is totally alien and separate from us. We are objectively apart of it as much as it is objectively apart of us. We experience each other, our pets experience us, and we all compose this thing that we call the universe inseparably and together. According to our definition of science, that is precisely what is attempted to be studied in the first place, through each of the different lenses that are available to us. And science, again, is just one lens that we can use to observe this universe as it objectively is.

So to get back to my original question, is sociology a science? In order to answer this, we can consider the other fields which are already acknowledged as sciences, in order to draw out some of the similarities and some of the differences between the two groups.

When we consider the other sciences, we are thinking about the second definition of science in Merriam Webster's Dictionary. “A department of systematized knowledge as an object of study; something that may be studied or learned like systematized knowledge.”ii Biology studies aspects of life, living organisms and how they relate to each other and the environment in which they exist. Chemistry studies the relations between different types of atoms and the ways that their structures, functions and inner properties manifest themselves when placed in varying conditions and circumstances. Physics concerns itself with the sub atomic particles themselves, and the very root properties of the universe at its deepest and most subtle levels. There are a host of other fields which look at things through different lenses, and there are a host of sub-fields in each of these fields which specialize in the things that are being studied and where/how the lenses are being focused. But each of these fields are attempting to pick apart and comprehend the objectivity of the world around us in each of their fields. Each one is looking for the baseball of objective reality that exists at the center of our subjective perceptions and conceptions about the world. And they do so, according to very strict rules of research which, many do not become qualified in. Yet we each are scientists in their own regard, as far as perceiving and working with that objective reality is concerned. We all experience the baseball that is objective reality on a daily basis in our own subjective manners, even if we are not pursuing that truth deliberately or systematically or concentrated in a specific field. And the beauty about scientific investigation, is that it seeks out conclusions that are universally demonstrable and universally experiential in our world. Any fourth grader can plant a lima bean in different soils and determine which one works best. A scientist simply uses hundreds of lima beans, in order to statistically rule out any oddities in their conclusion, and get as accurate a picture of reality as possible. This brings us to a root debate within the field of science and the philosophy of science, which is important to our understanding of science itself, and will help us figure out whether sociology can be considered a science in its own right, alongside biology, chemistry, physics, geology and all the others that are present and are being developed as you likely read these words.
In the philosophy of science, there are two basic ways to think about science and observing data. The first is known as inductivism. The second is falsifiability. Inductivism concerns itself with what can empirically demonstrated as objectively true. This means that the information is repeatable and based on a myriad of different examples and results, which then prove one thing to be objectively true, not true and partially true. A famous thought experiment to demonstrate this point, is to imagine counting over a thousand swans, with each one being white. The conclusion that would be reached by the inductive approach, would be that all swans are white and that would be the end of the inquiry. Philosophers such as David Hume purported the theory of induction as a manner to understand all things during the 18th century period of Enlightenment thinking in the West.

However, there was found to be a logical flaw in this line of thinking, especially when it was found that not all swans were white, as originally thought at the time of Hume's writing. Black swans were discovered in Australia and first described in 1790 by British naturalist, John Latham. How then could the inductive approach be founded in what was actually there, since in only a second the whole conception of there being only white swans vanished in an instant as part of an unsolicited and unexpected discovery half a world away from Hume's England?

It would not be until the 20th century with the advent of Karl Popper that the philosophy of science would catch up with this practical flaw in its understanding the world. Popper argued that there was a logical falsifiability that could be made concerning every scientific observation and every inductively reached conclusion. Popper than argued that this was the way that we could observe objective reality. It compensated for where inductivism failed to grasp and be able to work with the largely unknown aspect of the cosmos.

Popper based his conclusion on the observation that science advanced when previously held theories were found to be untenable in light of empirical evidence. Aristotle's mechanics proved to be false by Galileo's experiments, and were then replaced by Newtonian physics. Newton's physics were, in turn proven to be false by Einstein, and replaced by quantum mechanics and special relativity. Each new theory had a greater explanatory power as evidenced by repeatable and universally observable and demonstrable occurrences in the field of scientific study.

Thus, we can see how the two concepts of science: inductivism and falsifiability, work together in scientific fields to produce the pictures of reality that we. Inductive reasoning seeks to eliminate falsifiability and explain and account for how everything empirically works and is. Falsifiability, on the other hand, never truly goes away, but always pushes back against inductive approaches to enhance our objective understanding about the objective world in which we live and are apart of. The two do not seem to so much as contradict each other, and neither seems left out of scientific investigation and scientific research. But through the process of learning and re-learning different theories in light of inductively presented evidence, scientific advancement is made, and we get a clearer picture about this place in which we are, also, inseparably apart of.
So, we now have this understanding about science, which we can apply to our question about sociology. Sciences, according to our definition of “science”, is first concerned with a specific area and concentration in order to uncover objective truths about the world in which we're objectively living. There is always the possibility that some part of the theory, or indeed, the entire theory itself, can be undone in light of specific evidence to the contrary, in order to enhance our understandings and explanations about the world around us. Science is therefore, something that is in the process of destroying and rebuilding itself through the process of inductive research and falsifiable theory testing. The object of science is to establish accurate and clear understandings about the subject which is being studied in the fullest of possible fullest of senses. And this is constantly being done in our own lives, as well as in the research laboratories where it is done systematically and deliberately in order to establish constantly evolving functional understandings about the world in which we are living, and are apart of. So, what, in all of this, has to do with sociology itself?
Sociology is a field of study concerned with the human society and all its related parts. It connects to psychology, political science, economics, biology, environmental sciences and cosmological studies (physics, astronomy, etc), and it subdivides into a host of different theories and branches depending on what and whom is being studied where and when. In short, it's a very incoherent subject to be a science alongside biology or physics. And yet, it also has the potential to do that, on top of everything else that it is and that it does.

The following is a sketch representation of a study I conducted while I was standing at a cash register working during the Christmas rush. The company I was working at was having a holiday donation drive for the local food bank, and while I scanned people out at the register and questioned them about a donation, I took note of if someone donated, how much they gave, as well as their gender, ethnicity and whether they were with others or not. The study was done without their consent, in order to not disturb the data from falling into place naturally, and no personal information was taken from any of the customers that were included in the study. It was carried out over four consecutive days and tallied four-hundred and nineteen individuals in whether they gave, how much they gave, and what their gender and ethnicity were and whether they were in a group or not.

What was interesting about this study was not exactly its statistical merits in and of themselves. It was a small study, carried out over the course of a small amount of days. It was mostly a white and female demographic, and it did not answer most of the questions you would expect to answer about reasons for giving or demographic trends in giving, etc. What this revealed to me was something different, and it was expressed on this small sketch drawing that I made after the study was over:

To me, this drawing represented the molecular structure of our human world, and the precise subject of study when it comes to sociology and social relations. The individual person in this model, represent the base units of analysis. They can be broken down, like atoms in chemistry, into psychological and physiological parts, which then make up and determine the whole that is the individual. The bottom represents the customers at the company, which includes the people who donated to the food bank. Everyone connects to the company on the right, but only a few connect to the food bank, represented center top. The company is broken down to its employees, to show the human element that is, actually, present when we think and talk about the company. A line connects the company to the food bank through its efforts. On the left are other organizations that support the food bank and the donation process (infrastructure, etc). These connect to the food bank, and are again, broken down into their employee elements. Center top is the food bank itself, broken down to its volunteers, which are then the ones who distribute the food to the needy at the top. All individuals have extra connections on them leading nowhere, indicating that each one has their own web of social connections, in addition to the ones pictured here. Around the whole thing, is the environment, which consists of local, planetary, and cosmological levels. Each one is connected to each of the individuals and organizations in question, and each one acts as one together to compose the world in which we all live in. What this sketch is intending to show, is our society on the molecular level that is concretely present and relevant in our lives, despite the subjectivity that exists when presenting this kind of data in the first place. You can fiddle with the exact connections more and change some of the ways to precisely represent it. You could, for example, have all the people in organizations surrounded by bubbles to represent the organization that they're apart of. You could then choose to have either show the people themselves relating to the project in question, or having a line drawn from the bubble to show the connections that they each put in. But you're going to come to the same basic model sets with the same basic features again and again and again and again. This can all be looked at and tested in its own right and I encourage anyone to do so earnestly and honestly. Inductively testing this model and contemplating falsifiable options with regard to it are the only ways we're going to advance our comprehension of this world in which we're living in and apart of. This is what is present, in a very base and very sketch and very small outline of it. But it's there nonetheless. And we can use this kind of analysis to break it down further and understand it more about how these connections are relevant and how they function in the world. But they are there, nonetheless. And this representation is, what I would consider, the basis for scientific study and research in the field of sociology.

We have then, established, from this small study, a clear subject that sociology can study empirically. That is, the relations and inter-connectivity of individual members of this species towards others, and their implications in the lives of the subjects in question and those connected to them in various ways. We have, what is then, a chemical basis for human society that can be objectively and empirically observed and tested.
And what of the other points about science? The induct-ability and falsifiability? The fact that it is merely another lens through which we can observe the world outside of our brains and our brains existing conceptions and perceptions about the world? All of those are still there. This is just another theory when push comes to shove, that is waiting to be destroyed by better collected evidence and more nuanced experiments, which will reveal contradictory information and data. The process of science lives on, as does its place in the grand scheme of things. It's only a tool that some of us are using at the moment to get at truths and objective actualities about the world around us that our brains alone wouldn't understand or cannot begin to conceive of. The nature of science is preserved in the study of sociology as does its spirit in the brains of those who pursue it as a field of study.

So, in all of this subjectivity and all of this haze of personal perspective, is sociology a science? In my own view, yes, it is. It, like all the other sciences that are out there, is only a lens through which we perceive the outside world. And that, depends a lot on the person's tastes and personal brain function. In my own view, sociology does, indeed, have a clear subject to study in all the myriad of ways of doing it. And I think that, when taken in this light, it has all the credibility and grounding of the so called “hard sciences”, with the added relevance it has towards our personal lives and personal experiences living in this world. Sociology has a subject of study. It can be done inductively and empirically. It is limited by falsifiable theories and understandings about the world. And it is subject of study is as objectively grounded in this cosmos in which we're living, as all of the other sciences. It is therefore, not an abstracted field of study and theory alone, but a very real subject of study in our own lives and our own experiences as living beings living together on this very small rock in space.