Sociology. Anthony Giddens
the best we have because they have not been conclusively falsified – yet. This might appear to be a weak description of science that is at odds with widespread, common-sense ideas of science as producing hard facts and universal laws of nature, but the ‘open’ character of scientific knowledge and the open-mindedness of scientists are both crucial to Popper’s vision. However, in the 1960s and 1970s, detailed work by historians of science called Popper’s version of science into question.
Lessons from the history of science
Probably the most important critique of Popper’s model of science as an open enterprise remains Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962). Kuhn was less interested in what philosophers thought science should be like and more concerned with what we can learn from the actual history and development of science and its theories. He argued that the history of the natural sciences shows that scientists tend to work within the overall assumptions of a particular theoretical framework – a paradigm – such as Newtonian mechanics in physics, which led scientists accurately to calculate planetary orbits and much more throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Scientists become committed to expanding ‘their’ paradigm and practised a problem-solving form of ‘normal science’, which expands the evidence base of the paradigm and teaches its assumptions to new scientists without ever seriously challenging it. Normal science, says Kuhn, accounts for the bulk of all scientific work.
Over time, anomalous findings occur that just do not ‘fit’ into the existing paradigm. In the case of Newtonian mechanics, a crucial failure was the paradigm’s inability to explain the movement of light. Yet, rather than leading to challenges to the existing paradigm, scientists may instead query the data or the experiments that produced them. In short, while Popper expected scientists to work in an open-minded way, Kuhn found that, in practice, they resolutely defended their paradigms, dismissing contrary evidence and shaking off quite legitimate challenges (Benton and Craib 2001: 58–61). Why would they do this? The answer is a sociological one. Science is not an isolated enterprise but takes place within communities of scholars with a shared interest in defending the paradigms within which they have built careers and reputations and earned high status.
Kuhn argues that, at key moments, younger scientists, less bound into and committed to a specific paradigm, work on emerging anomalies and, in order to account for them, are led to devise new theories and build alternative paradigms. In the early twentieth century, a revolutionary new theory was developed – Einstein’s theory of relativity – which had a satisfactory explanation for the motion of light. The new theory became the centre of a new paradigm, which enabled ‘normal science’ to proceed again (Weinberg 1998). Kuhn calls this move a period of ‘revolutionary science’, when there is a real possibility of a paradigm shift. But this is not the kind of cumulative scientific progress Popper had in mind. Kuhn is at pains to point out that, even where a new paradigm develops, this is not because the old one had been conclusively falsified. Old and new paradigms are usually incommensurate; they just cannot be compared. Instead, as more and more scientists become attracted to the new paradigm, the old one simply withers away for lack of interest. On this account, scientific practice diverges radically from all the pure methodologies proposed by philosophers.
An even more radical position was taken by Paul Feyerabend, who was interested in how the most significant scientific discoveries came about. The philosophy of science suggests that these ought to be the outcome of strict adherence to proper scientific methods and years of painstaking research. However, Feyerabend argues that this is not the case. In fact, the episodes he describes most often came about by chance or when scientists deviated from established scientific practice, or even by laypeople making discoveries outside the scientific community altogether. In the appropriately titled book Against Method (1975), he concludes, contrary to all philosophical notions of science as both method and form of logic, history shows us that there is only one proven methodological principle: ‘anything goes’. Scientific discoveries have been made in all sorts of ways, and forcing researchers to stick to one set of rules stunts rather than encourages progress.
Scientific sociology?
What do the debates on the nature of science tell us about the scientific status of sociology? First, science cannot be defined by any one method or a fixed set of methodological rules. In practice, scientists adopt a variety of methods in their pursuit of knowledge. Pawson (2013: xi) argues that:
If science was merely a matter of routine and compunction, of compliance and rule following, it would be pre-programmed – done already or awaiting completion in the pipeline. In reality, scientific research undergoes constant change as fresh discoveries are made and new fields open up. Accordingly, methodological rules cannot be carved in stone … Each time the researcher dreams up a project, responds to a tender, enters the field, draws conclusions, makes observations and pens a paper, that individual will seed minute modifications to the methodological rules.
Pawson’s argument applies to both natural and social sciences, though he does not accept Feyerabend’s anarchistic conclusion. Instead, he argues that methodological rules are always in a process of development, but they are not irrelevant altogether.
Second, although there is no single scientific method or methodological principle (which was sought by philosophers), science does involve certain key elements, including theoretical thinking, the logical assessment of arguments, systematic empirical investigation, rigorous analysis of data, and a commitment to publish research findings to develop a cumulative body of knowledge. This means that the social disciplines, sociology and psychology among them, must be considered scientific because both quantitative and qualitative research involves all of these elements.
However, third, we should not expect sociologists to adopt exactly the same methods of investigation as the natural sciences. This is because people, social groups and societies are, in significant ways, very different from the other animals and events in the physical world. In particular, humans are self-aware beings who confer meaning and purpose on what they do. We cannot even describe social life accurately unless we first grasp the meanings that people apply to their actions. For instance, to describe a death as a ‘suicide’ means knowing what the person in question was intending when they died. If a person steps in front of a car and is killed, objective observation may suggest suicide, but this can only be established if we know that their action was not accidental. Intention and meaning are crucial explanatory features of human action, which sociologists cannot ignore if their accounts are to be valid.
Fourth, in acknowledging this significant difference between the social and natural sciences, it may appear that sociologists are at a distinct disadvantage. Trying to ‘get inside the mind’ of an individual is notoriously problematic and seems like an additional complication. Yet there may be a major benefit. Sociologists are able to ask questions directly of those they study – other human beings – and get responses they and other researchers understand. Biologists, for instance, have no such direct communication with the animals whose behaviour they try to interpret. The opportunity to converse with research participants who can confirm or criticize the researcher’s explanations means that sociological findings are, potentially, more reliable (different researchers would arrive at the same results) and valid (the research actually measures what it is supposed to) than many in the natural sciences.
At the same time, studying human beings brings problems that do not trouble natural scientists. People who are aware that their activities are being scrutinized may alter their usual behaviour and opinions, thus invalidating the researcher’s conclusions. Participants may consciously or unconsciously manage the presentation of their self and even try to ‘assist’ the researcher by providing the responses they think are being sought. Sociologists must be aware of these problems and devise strategies to counter them. Scientists studying the behaviour of chemicals or frogs do not have to deal with this additional problem.
To conclude, we can agree with philosophers of science