Sociology & the Scientific Method: Crash Course Sociology #3
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 19 ธ.ค. 2024
- 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 introduce two alternatives: interpretative sociology and critical sociology.
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"In science, when human behavior enters the equation, things go nonlinear. That's why Physics is easy and Sociology is hard."
- Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson
'Parents apparently want to raise their own spawn' 😂😂😂 top-notch delivery
And we're off to the comments section, let's see what the experts in philosophy of social science think
I understand that sociology has less reliable and straightforward results than harder sciences like biology and physics. But how else do people expect society to be studied scientifically?? It's just a harder subject to pin down, it's not people being lazy about it, it's people trying to explain it as consistently as possible! Otherwise you would just give up on trying to explain and understand society in a scientific manner altogether and that would just be stupid.
Whatever, how do you study what people do scientifically? Are you proposing it just not being studied at all?
I'm afraid that's not the case, positivist sociologists are just bad at statistics, and don't know what a logistical regression or funnel plot is apparently. If sociologists did data collection and analysis like epidemiologists then it'd be and could provide actual evidence.
"But how else do people expect society to be studied scientifically??"
They don't, to them society(or more specifically their society) is a logical and perfect creation from nothing by human free will. Challenging this creationism of theirs leads to backlash.
I haven't seen anyone opposing sociology being considered science say anything about society being perfect. Most of the people I see opposing sociology being considered a science seem to be against it because of sloppy methodology and data analysis by researchers, and the ridiculous state of sociological literature
My gripe with sociology is with the way its findings are communicated. The wage gap controversy is a prime example of that. Neither side of the argument is entirely right or wrong - they just chose to interpret the data in drastically different ways. But "The wage gap is something between 3 and 30 percent, depending on how you look at it" doesn't make for a good headline, so we've gotten "Women only make 73 cent for every dollar a man makes!" and "There is no wage gap!" filled with polarizing "proof" while totally neglecting valid points that challenge that particular interpretation. It's tedious and makes it nearly impossible to get the bottom of what's actually wrong with society.
Sociology is valuable and useful as a science, but it needs to be more careful in its methodology and publication practices. I realize that most researchers have no influence over what Buzzfeed or Breitbart do with their findings, but being more precise in their papers, articles and speeches and the best possible adherence to the scientific method helps.
i don't really get why people are so negative about sociology it's quite an interesting subject to look at different theories on how society works 🤔
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Jasmin Ali- by her very admission sociology is based around creating a hypothesis and then searching for evidence to support it, which is
NOT how science works. In real science you gather evidence first and then create a hypothesis around that evidence and then test the validity of that hypothesis through experimentation.
Jasmin Ali because it makes them face their own ideology and culture from a critical point of view, and people didn't like when they move the rug under them, so they try to dismiss the whole subject
darkblood626 they make a hypothesis based on observations.
Jasmin Ali They are reactionaries who have been propagandized against any kind of questioning of society and what they believe.
Ironically, the social science that most ignores the complexity of its subject matter, economics, is widely seen as the most scientific field.
omgersk8er Economics and Sociology is basically the same only that Sociology covers a wide range of possibilities and variables.
Economics doesn't look to find answers on why people we categorize people by race, creed,gender etc and how they are determined
@@merrittanimation7721 Are you sure about that? The economics I studied did acknowledge the fact that people do change their economic behavior due to social, racial, gender etc. divisions. "Why is white households' mean income in the US higher than black households'?" is very interesting from both an economists' point of view as well as a sociologists', don't you agree?
"status quo warriors", "social justice warriors", many are a lot better at coming up with pejoratives for people they disagree with, than they are at arguing their views.
I argue, this is counterproductive.
Could we drop the name calling and ad hominems?
Arguing a point can generally be done without tearing down.
If you feel you have a good point to add, just make your point, and let it speak for itself, without adding "and anyone who disagrees is an idiot!" at the end.
I cannot believe how beautifully you have explained such big concepts in such a short span of time!💛 Much appreciation for you!
I would love a graphic (infographic of sorts) that visually recaps the lesson and that I could either save or print out. These videos are incredible and filled with great information, and I actually love the pace that you're speaking. However without having to rewatch these it's hard to recall specific info. I personally try not to use my smart devices so much these days, and an old fashioned flash card would be just perfect.
Hell, doing flashcards that can be purchased via link at the end of each lesson would be a great potential way to help fund your business model.
I'm very excited about starting my Sociology career and these videos are really stoking that flame of excitement. Thank you!
the intro music, and the way it varies depending on the crash course series, really gets me every time. i get teary eyed with some goosebumps
A fun challenge for anyone dismissing sociology as science out of hand: Think of a reasonable definition for the scientific method that excludes all social science without also excluding some things pretty universally acknowledged as science. Are you sure your definition doesn't exclude astronomy, medicine & epidemiology, climatology, or ecology?
You could certainly argue that execution in some particular case is poor, but there's nothing about the epistemology of science that excludes the study of society.
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Science... a tool to disprove what we believe to be the case.
Sociology doesn't use this. There is too much chaos in the human condition for one single hypothesis to be acceptable and not have 6000 others accepted as well as equally plausible. For this reason, they try to prove the stated hypothesis through testing.... this is a falicy.
Based on what I've read of the sociological literature (which, granted, is largely on the quantitative empirical end) I'd argue that much, but not all, of sociology is performed in an attempt to falsify believed hypotheses.
However, why do you think that having only one acceptable hypothesis is a requirement to be science? That certainly isn't the case in medicine or ecology. If you want to get real formal about it, in a literal sense there will always be an acceptable alternative hypothesis that hasn't been ruled out yet, although that one is a bit pedantic.
+noah schaefferkoetter
"Sociology doesn't use this" That is false. In any science, you always try to isolate the relevant factors. The human conditions contain a lot of variables to work with, but in general if you're asking the right questions, you can single out the contributing factors. Basically all stats about societies work like this. That's why we know that the number of children goes down with growing economy, or that positive/negative reinforcement works better than punishment.
Great video! Embarrassing comments as usual tho. But to all the reasonable people in attendance, just keep in mind that hostile edgelords are more likely to post comments than everyone else, so that kind of skews the comment section. Most people watching this really dont see anything this video says as controversial.
at the time that I'm posting this video has a little over 6,000 views. Only 312 comments so far, and a lot of them from the same people. Thats about 5% of people who watched the video, and of that a lot of people commented nice things about sociology, i dont count the dislikes because a lot of people just down vote for the heck of it, so from this data i think we can safely say that people who think sociology isn't a science and also watched the video are in the minority.
FrankieSmileShow + So true!
MarathonRunner2 + indeed
It really isn't controversial at all, outside a few circles on the internet that feel personally under attack by it, like the pick-up artist community, the men's rights activist movement, the gamergate crowd, the conspiracy theorists, the white supremacists.
You know, in general the people with too much free time who whine about "political correctness" and "social justice warriors" a lot.
Its "controversial" in the same way that the theory of evolution is "controversial".... if you talk to creationists. Presenting it as controversial is part of a manipulative narrative they are pushing, its not a legitimate description of where it stands in culture or in academia. It's just spin, don't get caught up into it.
As someone from outside the US I have been parts appalled, amused and flabberghasted by how seemingly neatly anything on earth that people can have an opinion on is divided between two opposing camps in the american discourse. It seems as soon as you utter an opinion on anything, people pigeonhole you as belonging to this or that group. I can't count the amount of times someone assumed I must belong to some group or ideology just because I had an opinion that apparently matched. And bear in mind that I am german, so more often than not I had never even heard of that group before.
So from that point of view, if in your mind: Sociology = Social Justice Advocacy, then everyone on that side must agree with Sociology and everyone on the other must reject it. That seems beyond silly to me.
I'm sure most of that comes down to two vocal minorities yelling louder than any sensible person the middle. But it would really help if people understood that not everything must follow partisan divides..
By the way, I think the debate over if sociology is a science comes down mostly to semantics. In English you only have that one term: science. So to further differentiate (which is useful) people can only come up with terms like "hard/real science". And is sociology like physics? Not really, is it..
But for example in German that whole debate deflates. There never was one science ("Wisschenschaft") there was always a plethora of categories: like natural science ("Naturwissenschaft"), ~mind science ("Geisteswissenschaft", e.g. philosophy, history...), cultural science (Kulturwissenschaft), societal science ("Gesellschaftswissenschaft").. There is room for every kind of academic endevour :) It's not like anything that isn't STEM is useless to mankind.
I thoroughly enjoyed this video. I will continue to ignore the comments on this series. :)
Honestly same. I'm a sociology/social sciences major so a part of me likes to have giggle at some of the claims but it's pretty darn embrassing.
Yeah. I looked at the comments on the first one and had a good laugh at the folks calling sociology "leftist propaganda" and saying it's not a science, but when I saw it happening on the comments of the second video, I decided that it'd be best for my sanity to just not look at the comments. I just want to enjoy this series on sociology.
To be fair, the "not a [real] science" argument is valid. To be a real science it has to be both defendable and falsifiable. Is it falsifiable? Sure. Is it defendable? Not so much. Since it doesn't commit itself to establishing axioms about the human condition then it is easy to conceive of valid alternate hypotheses that completely undermine the chosen tested view. For this reason, it is EXTREMELY hard to use the scientific method effectively... and usually the choice is to try to prove a hypothesis right instead of trying to prove it wrong (which is the goal of the scientific method).
You know, in this very sense Math is not defendable. Not only can you choose from different sets of axioms to do maths, mathematicians actually work really hard to prove that this won't be a problem at all, even if you get absolutely contradictory results with different sets of axioms.
And sociology _does_ commit to axioms, that's what different paradigms are (see previous episode). There just isn't a single point of view that has been proven to be more useful, more precise or to rule out the others. So you use different approaches to address your observations, always acknowledging what your frame of reference is.
But math isn't a science
I hope Nicole uses the comments section as a social experiment based on controlled variables like intentionally using the keywords like 'Science 'and 'Sociology' in the same video.
Of course. Bias in research studies come up often. That's why no 'one' study is taken as irrefutable fact until further research from different perspectives are done.
And peer review!
"parents apparently want to raise their own spawn" IM YELLING LMAO
I love this show. the classifications of social behavior help me to see just how we develop as a culture and as humans on this beautiful earth amongst each other. in the undeveloped chaos of this world we live in there can be order through observing, classifying, and understanding.
I think it doesn't matter whether you believe sociology is a science or not, that might be your subjective opinion. It matters whether you care about the things it discusses and the changes it tries to bring about. If you're passionate about learning things, sometimes you should blank slate your mind and really think about what matters. I think personally it is just that everything she's talking about makes sense to me and that I have thought in these directions and these talks provide more structure and information for me to improve my society paradigm.
Really liked the video, the different metodologies and techniques used across different fields to suport theories and ideas is something I'm really into.
That being said there were a few things that you didn't adress that are bugging me.
1- Are the predominant theories in sociology falsifiable and how so (i.e.examples)?
2- How open to interpretation can a set of data be? How strong can evidence be in Sociology?
3- Does the volatility of knowledge in fields like psycology, that from my layman perspective could/should form the building blocks of sociology, affect the understanding of society from the optics of your field?
Cheers and keep up the videos
Sociology, like Psychology, is as scientific as it can get right now. Like trying to cure diseases before Germ Theory. We can't wait for perfect understanding of the brain before trying to put together an explanation of why we do what we do.
Sociology is doing the best it can (albeit I disagree with much of the recent subjective conclusions on social injustice). Do you have a better methodology? I don't, so I listen, trying to gather this data hoping it improves my critical understanding.
Sociology isn't doing the best it can. Sociology should copy the methodology of epidemiology in terms of data collection, statistical analysis, pre registering methodology, publishing boring uninteresting results in online journals, retracting flawed published research, and doing systemic searches of all the published literature which is relevant to whatever hypothesis you want to investigate to do a proper meta analysis. If sociologists did all that, sociology could be a very solid field in terms of observing social trends and establishing causes of those social trends. But sociologists can't be bothered to fix the glaring issues with their field apparently.
Allan, definitely excited by Behavioural Neurology, and the field of Neurology in general - it's very promising. I'm also all for double blind studies which are falsifiable, etc. At this time, Neurology is more the study of the micro functions (how the mind works, how it brakes, how to fix it). It's just scratching at the surface of being able to explain the whole mind as a system. Sociology studies more of the macro 'why' we do what we do in groups.
I would love one predictive model that blends the brain functions and how individuals act in society. I believe we are far away from such a 'unifying theory'. In the mean time, we have sociology - imperfect though it may be. Remember, I likened it to medicine before Germ Theory (i.e. Medievil).
Connor, I don't know enough about the studies that have occurred in Sociology (over the many years) to say they are not already doing what they can. Yeah, there have been stories of recent studies without peer review (which is a bad trend), but I have good faith there have been at least a few great minds involved in the mix over the many years. Think of advertising and how successful that has been; it could be called 'Applied Sociology' - they must be getting something right. Also, I don't believe Sociology has it so cut and dry as Epidemiology.
Epidemiology studies diseases in individuals and it breaks down to binary results: Diseased or not, fatal or not, transmitted or not, etc. Yes it gets more complex as controlling disease has to factor in who someone came in contact with (2^n problem), this lends itself better to the rigor of the Scientific method - it's one system (the body) and how it interacts with another system (the environment or other people).
I postulate Sociology has a higher order of magnitude problem. With Sociology, you have to study the individual, how they think (which is currently very flawed), many local interactions with local interactions per day, societal interactions (media/entertainment), in a varying environment, with a longer history, strewn with trends, etc. We've got systems on top of systems on top of systems of which each we have an imperfect understanding.
One thing we should agree on is that I would love for another, less philosophical, science to come along and enhance or usurp Sociology. Until then, it's interesting and the best take we have on the macro. Again, what else comes close to explaining society at large? (Please note, I don't like the flaws and limitations of Sociology too, but I don't want to pretend I know how to better tackle the problem as it's not so simple)
100+ years ago people said the same thing about eugenics, remember where that led us?
I'm so glad comments are getting better and less hostile against sociology! welcome to the disenchantment of the world
I wouldn't blame Crash Course if they just disabled comments for these videos.
They left them on for every video about Christianity; they know what's coming.
Not to mention that one video on Philosophy about hate speech that got almost half the bar in dislikes. I certainly hope they don't disable comments.
Draconicrose I would
ogarzabello Are you trolling? I refuse to believe someone can be this brainwashed...
Draconicrose thanks officer
Sociology is very enlightening. I literal think that a lot of social conflict comes down to a matter of positivism vs subjective sociological groupings.
love this episode. feel like it answered a lot of my question from the last one. I still don't think any thing outside of the positivist sociology should be called a “science” but I see the connection and the value without either way.
Man... coming over to the sociology videos from the mythology videos is like night and day in the comments. Crash Course comments are usually rather civil.
Though personally i think it's rather interesting that people are so hung up on exactly what is and what isn't a science... It's like... 'How dare this thing claim to be in the league of our holy science?!" I know sociology has always had to fight for that supposed honor... but the modern highly divisive political climate probably isn't helping. But who knows... these videos might be a sociological experiment in and of themselves.
Krescentwolf those who dismiss the merits of sociology forever consign themselves to the role of an unwitting specimen to scientifically literate observers.
some people like to think they can't be read, but they're far more predictable than they realize.
Im not predictable I once bit a mans face for no reason.
The major problem I have with interpretive and value sociology is that asking individuals about their own interpretations of why they do things only gets you what they believe is the real reason - which can sometimes be vastly removed from the reality of why they do the things they do.
this is subjectively the best currently running CC.
"Parents apparantly want to raise their own spawn." New favorite crash course host
If people want to dispute the validity of sociology as a science I suggest they go and do some reading around Augusta Comte and The Positivistic Method, Karl Popper and Falsification, and Pierre Bourdieu's book: Science of Science and Reflexivity. I was kind of surprised at the irony in the last video, with people having this same conversation without acknowledging the role of some symbolic interactionist work in understanding how we have different social constructions of what does and does not constitute science, but I guess that's another conversation.
Sociology Graduate here and I am very happy with the series so far, it's fairly basic, but touches on all the right notes in my opinion. Keep up the good work 🙂
I get the difference between the two, at least according to Google, never heard anyone actually use that distinction though, Natural and Social would be my go to categories. Not really seeing how that changes anything i've said however, and i'd think people just using the word "science" are making reference to something else entirely, but again, i'd suggest reading Pierre Bourdieu's book around that.
Did any one actually watch the video? I'm reading the comments and it's all about "it's not a science!" "it is a science!" "i'm right! You're wrong!" And yet no one is actually responding to the actual subject matter of the video. And if you don't actually care about the subject matter of the video then why are you are wasting your time posting here?
i feel the same way, i'm here to learn and see discussions about the video. this is 1 of the worst comments section in crash course. philosophy series has great discussions in the comment section
As someone who is studying both sociology and biology at a university, I struggle to see sociology as a science. That is not a bad thing though. Science is important but so is sociology and both should be valued for the different things they teach us.
You could have made the distinction between objectivity and subjectivity less ambiguous by separating them into epistemic and ontological subjectivity and obejctivity. By doing this it becomes clear that you can have an epistemicaly objective science about an ontologically subjective matter (e.g. economics)
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djivaha
Sorry for disliking, I agree with the content, but the words are what i would classify as "the ivory tower syndrom". It would be great to clarify that you can very easily have facts about opinions.
Simple example: While we can't conclude if Harry Potter is a great book, we can gather data on how many people think Harry Potter is a great book.
I hope this example is clearer than "economics" as an example, while it is valid.
PS: Harry Potter is not a great book. It's a series of books, not a book, hence it can't be a great book.
i am pretty sure the guy was trying to talk to people who are making the video, so they should understand it. Really though, if you don't know what subjectivity/objectivity, that's on you not googling the words.
this is my favorite crash course in ages. It's made me want to go back to school and try to get a masters, and it's going to be so so helpful in encouraging new young sociologists
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I think this is great, and that's coming from an anthropologist!
I am anthropologist too and I think it nis a great video too. But Dont you think interpretative sociology is practically the same than social and cultural anthropology?
@@capitansudamerica There is overlap, for sure.
This is a great series. I don't get all the negativity here.
I've never seen so many ignorant people on a crash course subject till sociology. Y'all need to calm down. I think if Harvard, Yale, Princeton, etc have sociology departments and consider it a social science then its a good sign that the subjects legit.
'Gender studies' is a thing. Your argument is invalid.
darkblood626 Wait, why is his argument invalid?
Appeal to authority fallacy.
Gender studies is not a social science.
No no, these youtube commenters obviously have the sole authority to demarcate the line between "real science" and "pseudo science".
I just love checking the comments section of these sociology vids, so many people are so unaware that their back goes up at the smallest mention of race.
The capability to deduct Laws, or objective truths which always apply, from its research, is the reason why sociology is most certainly not a science. You can bend the meaning of "science" all you want, and ommit this single most important quality of sciences, but at the end of the day, 2+2 will always equal 4 but we will never really know why people interact with each other.
I can't wait to study this in college but for real for real I need more videos. Crash Course is the best online teacher I have learned from since Brainpop
ahmaira bonds be prepare to do a Master or a PHD the Census is hiring Sociologist every year. good luck and welcome to one of the best degrees. I you add Statistics to your curriculum will be awesome.
The comments here are a bit more of a trainwreck than usual Crash Course videos, but I really appreciate the continued effort! One important part of understanding our world is understanding the mindsets scientists in a field may use to approach their research. All too often in my experience people think they can jump from one subject to another while keeping the preconceived notions of their first subject in place, regardless of how irrelevant those preconceived notions are to the second subject. Your videos help counter that. Please keep them coming!
Hey Nicole, thanks for being a great host. Love this subject and you are great at teaching it!
As an interpretivist, I would argue that sociology is not a science but instead one of the humanities. This means that we in sociology do not use the scientific method in order to find the hard facts of cuase and effect but instead like one does in philosophy or history one looks at qualitative data in order to find out the meaning behind terms within social interaction. From this we can deduct cause and effect. Therefore despite the fact that sociology is not scientific it is not meaningless it is very meaningful and important like philosophy and history are.
Sociology is applied psychology which is applied biology which is applied chemistry which is applied physics which is applied mathematics.
4:55 There is no such thing as free will.7:00 There are objective truths to any book. Or any piece of information (think about it for a moment). It is our subjective values, biases and even lack of better knowledge that determine which of these objective truths you decide to adopt and/or support. Waiting for the first reply with "citation needed". Go out yourselves, read, think and ask questions without the fear of stripping down everything that is human to you.
Look at all these clever people in the comments showing us how clever they are by bitching about semantics rather than using these videos to learn something about the world! How wise and superior they must truly be to the rest of us. Let's all take a knee and bow down to their incredible intellects and wonderful approach to learning.
graphs, the best version for displaying data, always. For those of you who want to argue and say there are specific situations where the graph just doesn't make sense to display said data, I say your graph just needs improvement.
I spent a year working solely within SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences).
So many models...
@7:00+ the difference between people who want others to think highly of their actions VS. people who troll behind closed doors on the social media
Just a general question.
We already have behavioral Biology. Humans are animals too.
Why can't we use the methods of Biology to study our own behavior, pretending we are studying some new species of animal? It seems quite objective, it is already a established methode and generally accepted by the common man as "real science". Or is it a bit too confronting to see ourselves as the animals we really are?
But since the last 3 episodes were just mere introductions to the subject, I hope to finally learn some Sociology, so I finally understand what the all the buzz is about. Looking forward to it :)
The issue with applying behavioral biology to humans is that, even though we are animals, we are very different compared to them. Humans often make choices that make no biological sense, like vasectomies or tubal litigation. If we tried applying biological reason to this, we'd find that it makes no sense. Animals want to reproduce and pass on traits, and often choose mates with desirable traits. Humans choose to completely remove their ability to reproduce, and of those who do reproduce we don't always choose who to reproduce with based on desirable traits. Based on behavioral biology, human behavior at the individual and the societal level just doesn't fit in with almost all other animals.
One of the fundamental principles of quantum mechanics is that you cannot observe a system without interfering with it. This is well-understood throughout the scientific community. To observe is to interfere. You call it the Hawthorne Effect, we call it Schrodinger's Cat.
THANKS TEAM CRASH COURSE SOCIOLOGY !
For my sociology A-level coursework I decided to look at the problem of low breastfeeding rates in the UK. My hypothesis was that social class would be the main predictor of whether a mother will initiate breastfeeding. I worked out my methodology -collecting primary raw objective facts by interviewing a random sample of new mothers, and I found that class was not the primary predictor for initiating breastfeeding, and that it was actually whether the mother grew up with their biological father in the home or not. I applied a statistical model to my result and found it was statistically significant. My research could be repeated by others to see whether they could replicate my findings.
After 6 months, in the UK, there is another huge drop of mothers breastfeeding. This is more of a macro effect than the micro effect of the initiation of breastfeeding. To find out why, a sociologist could use comparative research trying to find what the difference is between the countries with high breastfeeding rates and those with low rates. This is like a scientist changing variables in an experiment.
Now with the internet, simulations technology and processing power, sociologists are going to have access to a wealth of objective data which will allow them to discover facts about society which will allow them to make predictions.
Hey! I'm homeschooled and I find it funny/awesome that the website I do school on has me watch you XD You're hilarious so it makes science (no offense but one of my least favorite subjects) fun!
Knowing someone is watching me to measure how much I work makes me work a lot slower, just out of spite.
Thank you for pointing out the weakness of positivism.
Whenever people think of science they immediately go to positivism without knowing that by abusing this _19th CENTURY_ school of thought they fall into scientism, which is a way way worse delusion than certain religious dogmas because the certainty of finding "objective truths" often leads people to believe they have the world figured out and then usually start to fall for nihilistic mind traps.
So remember kids: use positivism with measure if you don't want to kill the natural curiosity of our scientific methods (yes, plural). Thank you~
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Quick tip: you can italicize words on TH-cam by surrounding them with underscores. Like this: _19th Century_
APaleDot _Test successful?_
Thanks :3
TheChosenSquirrel Yes, that's the ideal goal. However, care must be taken in order to not confuse objective truth with absolute truth, hence the quotations. It's an easy mistake to fall for.
One must also be aware that there is no absolute truth, only educated guesses about the Truth; knowledge about our world refined closer toward the ideal of trueness through a scientific or philosophical method.
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It would be cool to see a sociology survey of people's beliefs based on the core philosophical ideas(using thought experiments), as outlined in the last episode of Crash Course Philosophy. Also people's confidence level as to whether they've lived up to their beliefs. What beliefs do they expect from other people? What their approximate income level is. Whether people agreed to take the survey to account for an unknown percentage.
Pretty well explained! Wondering if maybe you could do a series about Criminology in the future...
The median is a form of average. So is the mean and mode. There are multiple forms of mean that can also be considered an average. Each different definition of an average has its merits and disadvantages, but they are all averages regardless
it feels like this series is more interested in telling us that it's a science than actually teaching us.
Good point. The behaviors of the observed changes if know it is observed. should keep in mind. Although it depends to time to time.
Omg she talks so fast that it’s hard to write notes on
Hannah Cochrane you u can slow the video down
I disagree with you at 6:53. I think you can objectively say that Book A is better than Book B. You just need to rigorously define the term "better". If for example, we defined "better" in this context to mean "has sold more copies", then you can objectively say that Book A is better than Book B by looking at global sales.
"Duhr, scientists may think they know what science is, but I'm a TH-cam Commnter, by gum! I know better! Sociomonogly ain't no science!"
Nonamearisto I don't remember mentioning a woman, but OK, troglodytes, run along now.
Indeed, anti-science status quo warriors are perfect illustrations of the Dunning Kruger Effect.
Nonamearisto And not who I was talking about. I understand you struggle to grasp basic concepts, but do try and keep up, OK?
Sorry bro, but that's psychology, and I'm sure they think that's not a science either.
Thomas Buchovecky Science is about falsification. Nothing in science can actually be "positively demonstrated", that's a mathematical concept, or why do you think creationists love pointing out that evolution is "only a theory" as if that isn't the case for all of science?
I love this series! Super excited to see what you'll cover next!
agreed, science = graphs
Hello every one 😃
Matematicly speaking, I think that in some case the MEAN, AVERAGE or MODE are not the right indicators to use if we've a huge dispertion between values. For those exemples in this video we could use the variance wish is the square of the standard deviation and equal to SUM[ i=1..n , ((MEAN - Xi)^2)/n ] that will give us more realistics value. The variance has a central role in statistics.
I thought the variance is just a measure of spread though? Not a measure of central tendency?
Sociology challenges ideology in ways that no other science does. Status quo warriors are extremely protective of their ideology & will do everything in their power to undermine anything that might challenge it.
Question, be sceptical, deconstruct.
Knight Chime sociology build an ideology and trees to gather "evidence" to reinforce its existence. that's not free thinking, that's a circle jerk
Knight Chime It's even more shallow than that, they don't like people using any kind of analysis on video games and movies.
+Leonelf Challenging ideology is not ideology. Nice try though. I'm guessing the only thing we're meant to be sceptical of is scepticism itself, right?
+Rob McCune I know, right? Also, the 4th Doctor is awesome.
This is great. Very informative. Nice explanation and relevant examples. Thank you
this series is awesome in that it has superb background graphics
it's font style used throughout is sexy
and i like Nicole spectacles' frame
very nice!!!!
I knew Positive and Interpretive Sociology but either I've forgotten Critical Sociology or was never taught that it is a thing...
Also, I'm really enjoying this series! Thank you Crash Course :)
P.S. I'm so glad that through this series some others who may have never heard of the field before may gain a love for Sociology as I did when I first walked into an AS Sociology class and had no idea what "Sociology" even was
Comments below: "But muh worldview! Incompatable! Therefore Sociology isn't a science!"
To all the people who think sociology isn't worth studying, it's the same as saying psychology isn't worth studying. Just because something isn't tangible, doesn't mean it isn't observable or that we can't make inferences about it.
Here we learn jump to a conclusions based on statistical evidence. We'll ignore the fact that correlation does not imply causation. Then we'll ban people from campuses that don't fall in line and argue against this narrative instead of debating them.
ffhighwind You got some strange conclusions from thinking people who believe correlation=causation lead to the end of rational debate. Why can't those people argue over wrong theories debate normally? Partisan forum debates do it all the time.
I feel like last 3 videos have been about what is sociology and how it is a science... Hoping they will get to discussing actual sociology studies, I am mostly interested in various studies to understand how society works etc.
Though looking at the comments, it makes sense why they need to spend so much time on setting the stage.
Look, if you don't think Sociology is a science, why are you even here?
A certain subset of people just LOVE complaining whenever they come across something that doesn't perfectly fit their world view.
because we WANT this to be explained in a defendable way. Many people like to learn even if (or especially if) it is outside our comfort zone.
noah schaefferkoetter Your definition of "defendable" will be the next (actually very first) step in that.
Francis Louie Merjudio
Being this is basic scientific terminology, I guess I need to define it.
defendable: ability to stand up to valid scrutiny presented by those that would disagree.
Trolling is the only response they have to analysis and critiques they are not equipped to understand.
This is the best youtube channel I've ever seen, very educational and enlightening. I can't ask for more! Stay safe everyone!
sociology isn't held to the same standard as natural sciences because sociology isn't a natural science... its a social science. its under a completely different branch of science, along with psychology and linguistics.
kaegemaru and Economics, Psychology, Biology ect they use Statistics to understand different points of views.
I am just over te moon about this series and i cant wait to see it unfold within the next weeks!!
5:01
Researchers in the 1930s to 1970s: Why not?
Please do a course on Hegel's phenomenology of Spirit?
When I watch this video, I have a sudden urge to watch Wayne's world again.. Strange..
It's clearly not a hard science like physics or chemistry, but the "science" of sociology is study based on the scientific method, which is the best way to go about it.
Fantastic videos but SLOW DOWN!! The talking is waaaay to fast and hard to follow.
Science: a number of studies in which the scientific method is followed and may be completed by peer review in order to produce reliable data, facts, and information. According to this definition I would say that since meteorology is not generally able to be repeated efficiently it would not be a science, sociology would also not be a science because it does not always produce reliable data. I would say however sociology and psychology would be sciences in the area they overlap with neuroscience.
I think another category or term should be dedicated to study's that don't meat these conditions.
Lastly I don't think any of generally accepted social sciences or sciences are at the point of pseudoscience, which contains subjects that sometimes arrive at the right conclusion in the wrong way, but the majority of the time suggest something that that is opposite, or drastically insane. A great example of pseudoscience is the concept of blood-letting and the four humors which were modern day medicine as late as the 18th century. This sometimes produced an ok result, but most of the time led to a condition worse then the beginning. This is how I would define science.
With respect an intellectual, JSB2
It's a decent vid but you made an amusingly ironic mistake when, as you're touting sociology as a science, you immediately confuse "theory" for "hypothesis" at 0:56. You don't test theories. You test hypotheses. Theories come much later, as they are overall explanations based on a preponderance of research evidence (well, in a perfect world anyway). At least Hank got it right at 2:38 of the Crash Course Psychology #2 vid.
When she mentions - sometimes the information that you need can't or shouldn't be distilled into a number or a spreadsheet, what are examples of things that shouldn't be categorised?
The example of why people get married n some just stay in long term relationships - she says "maybe some are quantifiable but a lot of the process comes down to how a couple feels." Can't we assign numbers to different feelings associated with why they chose what they chose? What part of this isn't quantifiable?
Over a dozen comments in less time than the length of the video. Golf clap.
4:01 - The mode is NOT the same as the median. It can be, but it doesn't have to be. Ex: in this set: {1, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8}, mode = 1, median = 2, mean = 3.
whatever you do don't stop making this series because of the people who reject them. they have no clue what they're really saying about an entire field of science.
btw it's "gender bender" also the "new" gender has been around for a long time, gender is more of a mix of anthropology, sociology, psychology, etc. you are just living in a society that taught/recognises 2 gender. i think if you really done your thorough research, i think you can find your scientific evidence. i can't explain wage gap because i'm not really actively doing my research or am interested about that topic. you can do your research your own by reading credible sources. Validity is covered in crash course philosophy, i took down notes, it says "valid" does not equal to "truth". Have a great life learning!
phoenixkhost I'm too lazy to find it for you or read it for you. that's too much to ask from someone. you can do it yourself. gambate!
also, i do identify out of the binary, but i always can't find the words to describe because i wasn't exposed to the info. when i saw the definition of the different non-binary terms i immediately recognise that that is me. i felt a relief and less confused about my identity.
i can't get access the full articles because it requires money. i also think that there are parallels to sexual orientations in the past or even today
it's difficult for me to put into words, other ppl does it way better. i've been wanting to get a book that explains different definition and experience from real ppl but i dun have enough time and money at the moment
also, these are the articles that was recommended by uppercasechase1 aka chase ross:
RICHARDS, C; et al. Non-binary or genderqueer genders. International Review Of Psychiatry (Abingdon, England). England, 28, 1, 95-102, 2016. ISSN: 1369-1627.
Bosse, J. D. and Chiodo, L. (2016), It's Complicated: Gender and Sexual Orientation Identity in LGBTQ Youth. J Clin Nurs. Accepted Author Manuscript. doi:10.1111/jocn.13419
Frohard-Dourlent H., Dobson S., Clark B.A., Doull M. and Saewyc E.M. (2016), “I would have preferred more options”: accounting for non-binary youth in health research. Nursing Inquiry, 00: 1-9. doi: 10.1111/nin.12150
Katz-Wise, S.L., Reisner, S.L., White Hughto, J.M. et al. Arch Sex Behav (2016). Self-Reported Changes in Attractions and Social Determinants of Mental Health in Transgender Adults
Elise R. CarrotteEmail author, Alyce M. Vella,Anna L. Bowring,Caitlin Douglass,Margaret E. Hellard andMegan S. C. Lim. 2016. “I am yet to encounter any survey that actually reflects my life”: a qualitative study of inclusivity in sexual health research. BMC Medical Research Methodology
Also, there are cultures like bugis, native north americans, etc. that identify more than 2 genders these are what i can remember. If you still think that only 2 genders exist, idk what to say anymore.
+phoenixkhost what sociologist actually said that women make 77 cents to the dollar? I bet it's the media that interpreted results of a study that way, and the actual study was much more nuanced and clearer. It's usually the media that take things out of context because it makes for sensational headlines.
I'm skeptical about the quality of sociology research, especially interpretive sociology. Other than income, which is more in the realm of economics, what kinds of data can you gather? I imagine that most of the data a sociologist wants is prohibitively expensive to gather.
I think the biggest problem is data in these types of experiments are both very difficult to control for, as they basically said. But bigger, almost impossible to reproduce.
"thruth isn't always objective"
it is in physics. Even if we don't know all of it yet.
I think this type of research is useful and important but why would people be so hard set on getting on the cool kids table of science? Does chemistry's approval make your work more valid?
Physics is not objective. Physicists rely on their theories to interpret their findings. Scientists can have plenty of "objective" measurements, but they can never have some objective understanding of reality, just look at the history of biology for a more direct example.
Hakkapeliitta what are you using the gravitational constant for? Some model of a "force" you call "gravity"? How are you sure that gravity is a real force at all, and not just a result of the geometry of spacetime? Einstein certainly couldn't see a difference. Yes, the models predict orbital velocities within a certain margin for error, but that's all they can claim to do. They never objectively say, "Look at me, this is how nature literally and definitivly works." They depend on the humans doing the interpreting, and we've been steadily wrong for thousands of years. In a hundred years, people will laugh at the 21st century conception of the physical world.
Physics is not objective. Einstein famously claimed 'It is the theory that describes what we can observe'. There was a school of thought known as logical positivism that aimed to only rely on objective knowledge, it is one of the very philosophical schools that is categorically dead, it is not a tenable position. This is to not say that all knowledge is subjective, but scientists are looking for usable knowledge as opposed to complete objectivity for the most part. We know for example that the speed of light is not actually a constant everywhere, but the idea of a 'speed of light' is a very useful scientific concept.
12Rman21 Do you actually have data on reproducibility in sociology or are you just making things up? Nothing outside of possibly chemistry has the reproducibility of physics, in medicine which only studies a single human physically, the reproducibility can be around 50%.
xkcd.com/435/
can ppl who keep arguing about sociology being not a science, can you just go watch videos like crashcourse philosophy or psychology or you think that they are not anywhere close to the meaning of science go watch biology, physics and chemistry because that's the science yall are familiar with. i just want to see discussions related to the video
Yeah, thats what I don't like about sociology. We start off strong with evidence based research, or "positivism", then realize positivism is hard, and give up on it. Good experiment design is hard, and rigorous statistical analysis is hard, but that does not mean you should give up.
Our knowledge of statistics and how to control for variables has come a long way. Now, peoples own opinions of there environment are important, I get that point. But people are constantly shaped by the studies they see, so using their opinions gives a positive feed back loop.
Why is racism a thing? Do people inherently think that different people are worse? If that is true, then it cannot be fixed, so we should hope its not. No, its a learned behavior. Why do people learn it? Because other people tell them racist things, and the world does not seem to contradict it. Then these racist attitudes reinforce the status quo, and we continue.
The point being, the very concepts we use, our subjectivity as you call it, causes the actual behavior. So incorporating this data into your models, especially if they form the basis of your models, will often make these viscous positive feed back loops.
Also, subjectivity is not a thing. A subjective statement is just not a properly qualified phenomenon. So many statements we make are filled with allot of implicit assumptions. This is largely good, since specifying those assumptions is expensive and most people are people and people are fairly uniform. That said, when an unstated assumption brakes, things can be confusing when you don't realize the assumption.
So while some assumptions are always necessary, the realization that you have to make some does not mean you should give up. It means you should build models and parameterize assumptions that concern you, then run rigorous statistical analysis and look for results.
In closing, sociology is hard, really hard. Luckily people can easily be approximated by simple models, so its still doable, but we are smart enough to "game" any models you through at us, known as the Hawthorne effect. I just don't like that sociologists seem to give up on the hard models instead of being more careful. That is why sociology has to work so hard to be a science, because it often isn't.
It may be counterproductive - when discussing sociology as a science - to use the colloquial theory (i.e. "it's JUST a theory" rather than the theories of evolution and gravity) to talk about scientific hypotheses.
You're playing kinda fast and loose with your philosophy of science and your definition of the average
I actually love the statistics of sociology, probably more than the actual studying. I would love for crash course to create a statistics course.
Crash course statistics would be amazing, if they actually went to a reasonable level of depth
I have a hard time understanding why Sociology cannot be a purely quantifiable endeavor. Are humans really so unpredictable - more so than the natural world which created them - or does a lack of knowledge about humanity simply result in us being unable to make accurate predictions? There is little to no evidence humans have any more free will than microbes. And we probably don't fully understand what free will even is.
Of course humans base a lot of their decisions on subjective beliefs. But I don't understand why subjective beliefs and decisions cannot be observed, analyzed, and understood objectively. For example, I can observe a group of wolves and see that they have monogamous relationships. First objective fact: Wolves believe in monogamy. Then we can try to figure out why they believe in monogamy. Does genes play a role, is there social pressure, did their ancestors also practice monogamy etc? None of this can, nor does it have to, go into a subjective direction. It's the same with humans.
Because many don't care about the feelings of wolves. Nor do they care about the meaning of these almost metaphysical concepts as "freedom", "liberty", ""happiness", etc...
If we care about humanity, our struggles, our tears, our laughs, our happiness, then we most accept that such concepts and feelings exist, and that they are susceptible of being researched scientifically.
Just because they aren't possible to research positively, doesn't mean they aren't scientifical.
Jesus Osegueda Whether "many don't care about the feelings of wolves" is completely irrelevant. If you want to understand wolves, in-depth, you have no choice but to learn about wolves' relationship to each other. And you have to do this via an objective approach. You have to put any preconceived notions and feelings you previously had about wolves and you have to observe and learn what and how the wolves truly are.
If you want to understand humans, you must take the same approach. Treat humans like any other animal. There's nothing wrong with emotions, but they don't exist for us to find truth. That isn't the point of emotions. Emotions are better at helping us connect to each other and empathize with each other. Emotions have no place in a search for truth. At least, not in the case of the observer or truth seeker.
What I meant is that if you want to understand wolves, in-depth, as if the wolves were a person, with feelings, who perceive meaning in the world...
... then you have to learn about the wolves' mind. About their feelings. And this is a subjective topic.
Jesus Osegueda Yes, the feelings themselves are subjective. The perceived meaning of the world is subjective. But my point is, your analysis doesn't have to be subjective. Just turn actions into data. If 93% of the wolf packs observed have a culture of hierarchy, where one wolf leads and dominates the rest of the wolves, then we can conclude that wolves have a hierarchical social structure. Now, we want to understand why they have such a structure. Most likely, it's a result of either genes or their environment.
In order to learn more about why we can simply measure the effects of isolation. Meaning, we can take a wolf when it is born and raise it away from other wolves. Then when it becomes an adult, we can release it back into the wild where it can interact with wolves. If in every case the isolated wolves fail to conform to the wolf hierarchical structure, then we know it is a very strong possibility that this structure is completely or mostly environmental or nuture. If the isolated wolves released repeatedly integrate and conform to the structure, they probably have a genetic predisposition to develop and create hierarchical social structures.
Economists have tried forever to create models to predict human's behaviour through quantitative methods, but they constantly fail to predict crises. I share your enthusiasm for things that can be quantifiably proven, it's nice to have the reassuring feeling that the calculator agrees with your conclusions, but limiting oneself to studying only quantifiable phenomena severely limits the abilities of a field to understand it's chosen subject. Going beyond quantitative methods feels like being on thin ice, but if you never try to tip-toe across it, you'll never get to the other side of the river where new knowledge may be found.
as a follow up I do hope they explore the divisions between the Chicago school and the Frankfurt school. Positivism is a very divisive topic in sociology. Can we ever truly prove objectivity if our interpretation of data matters? I really love these CC, and indeed you guys are giving me plenty of good study sources for my sociology class. To the many people who are arguing against sociology as a science. I Struggle to understand your logic in many ways. Biology, it is not, but also isn't trying to be. Nor I would argue would that be ok. Could you imagine if the rules of natural science applied to human society in the same way it applies to ants. Good lord the implications. I like to think of humans as my old psych professor once said, "Humans are rational beings with irrational tendencies". We can easily look for patterns. They just aren't going to be predictive in the same way a chemical reaction is. And again, would you even want that?
Science, from Latin "scientia", "knowledge".
Yeah, and they are seeking knowledge about society. What's your point?
There's no point. Research is Research ( Knowledge )
Are we speaking latin?
Are we in the second century?
No?
Then let's use the proper definition of science please; the use of the scientific method.
The Goodly Dragon
Interesting.... "Idiotish"? Is that the language Trump naturally speaks? It would explain his strange streched prenounciation when he tries to speak English. :p
Ofcourse the OP is a weak argument for social sciences being science, but your counter isn't any better.
"Critical sociology: The study of society that focuses on the need for social change"
Bear in mind here that the word critical doesn't mean 'expressing or involving an analysis of the merits and faults of an idea/set of ideas'. Here it means 'targetting structures of power and oppression' because that's basically how they think change is brought.
So why are there people at all saying that sociology isn't a science? I think sociology ís a science. I think it has problems that don't occur with STEM fields like physics or chemistry.
In physics, if your statistics are off or your formulas don't work, your rocket isn't going to fly.
In sociology, you measure people. The closer you get to social interactions, the more difficult it gets to measure people. E.g. you don't know whether or not what you are measuring is the thing you want to measure (the validity of a test). This is a big problem in social psychology, but I digress.
Even with big data sets, on population for example, you can interpret a set of data however you like. Justify your perspective by calling it value-driven sociology, and you basically have a free ticket to do what you want with it. Because, hey, you want to change the world.
except there is a very real difference between social sciences and natural sciences. social sciences are quite difficult, if not impossible in some cases, to replicate... social sciences are subject to quite a bit of tainting and are very easy to skew. The social sciences are very much like statistics... potentially useful in some cases, but completely worthless in others...
To all the haters: Come up with something better and we'll call that sociology. Well... we're waiting.
Also, look up positivism and have a long think.
People have been discussing possible improvements to sociological research and sociological journals for the past three videos, it's just that crash course removes any comments which don't praise sociology.