Breaking down the question

This is a classic three-part question, and each part must be answered explicitly. First, what is science? — you must offer a working definition, not assume one. Second, can the methods of natural science be applied to sociology? — the central debate. Third, give reasons — the marks lie in the justification, so every claim needs support.

The heart of the question is the naturalism versus anti-naturalism debate. Positivists argue sociology should model itself on physics; interpretivists argue that the subject matter of sociology — meaningful human action — demands different methods. A twenty-mark answer must present both sides and reach a reasoned position.

Elements to develop:

  • The defining features of science — empiricism, systematic observation, generalisation, verification or falsification, objectivity.
  • The positivist case for applying natural-science methods to society.
  • The interpretive and realist critiques.
  • A synthesised judgement about what kind of science sociology can be.

How to approach it

Begin by defining science through its method rather than its subject matter — this framing lets you ask whether the method transfers. List the hallmarks: empirical grounding, systematic and controlled observation, formulation and testing of hypotheses, generalisation towards laws, and objectivity.

Then structure the debate cleanly. Present Comte and Durkheim for the positivist affirmative, showing how Durkheim treated social facts as things. Follow with the interpretive objection — Weber, Dilthey — that human action carries meaning and cannot be studied like inert matter. Add the practical difficulties of experimentation, prediction and value neutrality. Draw on sociology as a science.

Conclude with a qualified naturalism: sociology is a science in method and rigour, but a human science that adapts, rather than copies, the natural-science model.

Model answer

What is science? Science is best defined not by what it studies but by how it studies. It is a systematic body of knowledge acquired through empirical observation, the formulation of hypotheses, their testing against evidence, and the cautious generalisation of findings into laws or theories. Its hallmarks are empiricism — reliance on observable facts; systematic and controlled observation rather than casual impression; objectivity — freedom from the observer's bias; verifiability or falsifiability — the openness of claims to test; and cumulative generalisation. On this definition, any discipline that pursues knowledge through these procedures has a claim to being scientific, regardless of subject matter.

The question then becomes whether these procedures can be applied to the study of society.

The positivist affirmative. Auguste Comte, who coined the word sociology, envisaged it as the queen of the sciences, applying to society the methods that had triumphed in physics and biology. His positivism held that only observable, verifiable phenomena constitute genuine knowledge, and that social laws could be discovered just as natural laws had been. Emile Durkheim gave this programme methodological teeth. In The Rules of Sociological Method he insisted that social facts be treated as things — external to individuals, constraining their conduct, and observable through their effects. His study of suicide exemplified the approach: using official statistics, he correlated suicide rates with degrees of social integration and derived a general explanation, demonstrating that even the most private act follows social regularities. For positivists, sociology can and should be a natural science of society.

The interpretive critique. Anti-naturalists deny that the subject matter of sociology permits this. Wilhelm Dilthey distinguished the Naturwissenschaften, which explain through external causes, from the Geisteswissenschaften, which must understand meaning from within. Max Weber developed this into a working method: because social action is oriented by the subjective meanings actors attach to it, the sociologist must practise Verstehen — interpretive understanding — as well as causal explanation. A falling stone has no view of its fall; a voting citizen does. The meanings, intentions and values that constitute social life have no analogue in the natural world and cannot be observed in the way temperature or mass can.

Practical and epistemological difficulties. Several features of society resist the laboratory model. Controlled experiment is rarely possible and often unethical — one cannot isolate variables in a living community as in a test tube. Prediction is undermined because human beings are reflexive: they may alter their conduct once they learn of a prediction, producing self-fulfilling or self-defeating prophecies. Objectivity is harder to secure because the sociologist is part of the society studied and carries values into the work. The observed, being conscious, may also react to being studied — the very act of observation can change behaviour.

The realist middle path. Against a simple positivism, critical realists such as Roy Bhaskar argue that natural and social sciences share a deep structure — both seek the underlying, often unobservable, mechanisms that generate observable events — while differing in that social structures depend on the activities they govern and exist only in open systems. This preserves sociology's scientific status without demanding that it imitate physics.

A reasoned position. Sociology can adopt the ethos of science — systematic method, evidence, logical inference, openness to test and the pursuit of objectivity — even where it cannot replicate the techniques of the natural sciences. It is a science, but a distinctive one: it studies meaningful action, works largely in open rather than controlled systems, and combines explanation with understanding. To insist it be identical to physics is to misunderstand both the diversity of the natural sciences themselves and the nature of social life.

Therefore the honest answer is a qualified yes. Many methods of natural science — careful observation, comparison, measurement, hypothesis-testing — apply fruitfully to sociology, as Durkheim showed. But they must be supplemented by interpretive methods that recover meaning, as Weber insisted. Sociology is scientific in rigour and method while remaining a human science in subject matter — and it is precisely this combination that gives it its unique explanatory power.

Examiner's perspective

This question rewards structure above all. Examiners want the three parts — definition of science, the applicability debate, and reasons — addressed in order and in full. Scripts that plunge straight into positivism without first defining science lose easy marks.

The strongest answers stage the debate as naturalism versus anti-naturalism and populate each side with the right thinkers — Comte and Durkheim for the affirmative, Dilthey and Weber for the critique. Durkheim's Suicide and Weber's Verstehen are the load-bearing illustrations; deploying them accurately signals command of the syllabus.

Weaker answers treat the question as an invitation to declare sociology either fully scientific or not scientific at all. The examiner is looking for a qualified judgement — sociology as a science of a distinctive kind — supported by genuine reasons rather than assertion. Mentioning practical obstacles such as experiment, prediction and value neutrality, and gesturing to the realist middle path, lifts an answer into the top band. Precise use of terms — empiricism, positivism, falsifiability, objectivity — throughout demonstrates conceptual control.