The role of theory and fact and the importance of values for science are very crucial and valuable. These areas interrelate logically when the question is raised: "How practical is scientific sociology?"
This is a basic question for the student of sociology. The major portion of sociological effort is expended in the solution of
26 &zearchMethdology practical problems for government and business. If this is true, then most students will have more concern with these practical problems than with the theoretic advancement of sociology. A course in the methods of sociological research, then, should have some value in training for the solution of practical problems. Whether or not to emphasize theory is not, however, a question that faces sociology alone. It is common to all science and is generally thought of as the consequence of a controversy between pure and appliedscience.
This dichotomy, like that between "values and science," rests in part upon false bases.
THE PRESSURES TOWARDS APPLIED SCIENCE It is commonplace to hear science decried as being deaf to the values of the arts, as being morally obtuse, or as being narrow
in its range of problems. All this may be true, but there is still the brute fact that science grows ever stronger. The reasons for this lie in its practical applications. Ittakes no great sophisticaticxito appreciate these. Members of the most isolated and simple preliterate society can appreciate that an ax designed on good engineering principles will fell a tree faster than one of their own design. It requires no knowledge of mathematics, chemistry, and physics to grasp their consequences in the modem world. As a result of the applications of scientific study. Western civilization will leave the most impressive ruins yet found on this globe. Science is known to the vast majority of the public almost solely by its engineering results. These practical applications therefore become the most frequently used criterion of the degree to which a discipline is scientific. If sociology is a
science, then this fact must be demonstrated by acievement
of .practical results. All other activity will tend to be put a side as"pure theory," that is, as mere speculation and as evidence that the field is not scientifically oriented.
Such pressures, plus the widespread faith that science can solve problems"can save us," in the words of one writerresult in
suggestion that sociology tackle immediate and practical problems.
This pressure does not come from laymen alone but is also exerted
27 by those in social agencies and by university administrators and professors.
Sociologists have further contributed to this situation, particularly those who allow their vision of the bright future to color their appraisal of present actualities. Again, this is not characteristic of sociology alone but of science in general. Persuaded by their belief in the progress of knowledge, many scientists have predicted too early the appearance of many engineering devices. The motor car and airplane are cases in point, for example, manyscientists have predicted too early the appearance of many engineering devices.
The motor car and airplane are cases in point, like other applications of science they were predicted hundreds of years before their appearance. Every important engineering triumph comes only after repeated failures to solve the problem. Sociologists who claim applications of the field beyond the range of present possible achievement do no service to their own discipline. They contribute instead to pressures which demand that sociology prove its scientific nature by dlicing applications of a practical nature far beyond the limits of its body of knowledge.
COUNTER-PRESSURE
Resistance to the foregoing emphasis upon practical results is of two types. First, there is resistance based upon the belief that science has best been able to achieve practical results when no goals pther than those of science are considered. Those who hold this position maintain that if scientists are allowed to pursue problems dictated purely by theoretical concerns, the growth of science and hence the growth of its potential applications will best be served.
If the dichotomy of pure as against applied science is accepteted, the logical question would be "Which of these should be emphasized in contemporary sociology?" However, not all scientists accept the dichtomy to begin with, and this refusal is the basis of the second type of counter pressure to the insistence that sociology be addressed mainly to practical problems.
a
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It will be noticed that a certain parallel between this problem and the discussion of the relationship between theory andfact
is
indeed a similar question, and one that requires an understanding of the nature oftheorv as a basis for analysis. Let us see how a redefmition of the problem affects the decision to confine oneself to "practical"
sociology A theoretical system is away of organizing problems.
All facts collected, all analysis of th,ese facts, even the perception of the data themselves are eniereed within some sort of theoretical framework. Such a simple statement as 'Water is wet" is understandable only if it is made within the proper frame of reference. In nuclear physics, for example, water has no such characteristic. Wetnessis not a property of electrons or their nucleus. Similarl .ina "common- sense" frame of reference, it may be asserted that a particular table is black. If. however, the table is examined within the theoretical system of chemistry, no such quality appears. It is, instead, a combination of complex organic compounds. These simple examples serve to make two rather complex points. First, there is a difference between the common-sense frame of reference and a scientific theoretical system. The latter is much narrower and is defined more precisely. As a consequence of this narrowness and precision, it is also clear that frames of reference shift among the several sciences, so that properties in one science simply make no sense, or do not appear, in another science. The significance of this point will be discussed later when the problems of the hypothesis are taken up.
For the moment it is the difference between the common-sense viewpoint and the outlook of science which is of greater importance.
The "importance" of a fact depends upon the frame of
reference. Thus, a fact may be significant in the theory of a science without making any common sense at all. For example, the classic Michelson-Morley experiment, which showed light to have a speed independent of its point of origin or its direction, was of great importance to physics. Although this is a basic datum in the special theory
of
relativity, its immediate impact upon the man in the street hasbeen negligible. If the findings had been contrary that is, that light moving
in the direction of the earth's spin traveled at the equator about 0.3
29 mile per second faster than its customary speed of 186,300 miles per secondwho would notice, and who would care?
A fact is of significance only with reference to a particular theoretical schema. It may be of great scientific importance. but of no significance to the common-sense world and vice versa. It might be concluded, however, that if science depends for its growth upon the acquisition of scientifically important facts, the scientist should concentrate on "pure" research problems. While there is undoubted merit to this proposition, it cannot be accepted as a necessary conclusion unless the common-sense world and the scientific schema
are mutually exclusive.
The same fact may have relevance for both scientific
and practical problems. A problem that occurs in the everyday world is set in a loosely defined frame of reference, and its solution usually depends on several sciences simultaneously. Its characteristics therefore may be quite differert from those of a scientific problem.There is nevertheless a relationship between the two.
To take a simple example, the cook, unaccustomed to the altitude, who boils his soaked beans in Delhi City for the usual 45 minutesto an hour will find them inedible. The problem he faces is that, in spite of the cooking, the beans have remained perversely hard. The solution is simple: cook them much longer until they are
"done." This is a practical problem solved in a common-sense context.
It is clear that such a problem is not a scientific one, at least as it is stated here. In the first place, it is not stated what constitutes
"hard" beans or what is meant when they are said to be "done."
Secondly, the problem is not stated in sufficiently abstract terms to permit its solution to add anything to a scientific theory. Finally, once the solution to this problem has been reached, there is no compulsion to discover the reasons for this situation. In short, it is entirely devoid of scientific interest. Itneed not be so, however.
Nothing prevents the problem of cooking beans at various altitudes from being looked at from the point of view of science.
For example, the activities of scientists in the seventeenth
S
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century, most of whom were mechanics and men of practical affairs rather than university men, were focused on problems understandable to most people. The new telescopes and microscopes were turned on any and every subject of interest that struck them. These men made better gunpowder and new cosmetics, improved firearms, and looked at ordinary ditchwater. At that time, the great flowering of modern physical science, there seemed to be little difference between practical and scientific frames of reference.
The study and solution of these everyday problems was, however, accompanied by an eager search for an understanding of the principles behind each problem. It was this fact that distinguished these solutions from merely practical adaptations and raised the activity to the level of science.
During this period the eagerness of the search for truth was so widespread that new experiments were repeated and discussed before ordinary citizens as well as scientists. When Von Guericke, Mayor of Magdeburg, invented the air pump, he found the Diet of Ratisbonne a most interested audience.
This air pump had several consequences. First, it astounded the Diet by showing that two hemispheres from which the air had been exhausted could not be pulled apart by horses. In this sense the pump served as an intellectual toy. Beyond this amusement, however, observations of the air pump led to the discovery of important facts about the weight of air, and air pressure. These discoveries in turn have produced such important practical inventions as the barometer, the thermometer, andto solve the problem of the beansthe pressure cooker. It is clear that the subject matter of early science was not far removed common exprience. Brewers, dyers, mayors, soldiers, merchants, and men of many other backgrounds were able to make important contributions. There was, in other words, a considerable overlapping between the frameworks of science and of common sense. Theoretical science and practical problem solving were not widely separated.
Since, however, men had been solving practical problems for
millenniums before this period without creating natural science, there must a marked difference between empirical problem solving and the scientific method. It is also clear that this difference does not separate practical questions sharply from the sphere of scientific interest.
COMMON SENSE AND SCIENTIFIC FRAMEWORKS Some of the relationships between these two ways of seeing problems have already been discussed. They may be summarized as showing four major differences, even when the focus of attention
is an everyday practical problem.
The scientific method goes beyond the solution of the
practical problem. There is a compulsion to find better instruments to help in the solution or to find alternative ways of solving it more satisfactorily. In other words, the practical problem may be solved in the area of common sense, but not in the scientific frame of reference, for here many problems remain even after "the beans are cooked."The scientific method of solution involves controlled
experimentation. This means that, even though a practical problem may be solved by the application of casual empirical observationthat is, simply by cooking the beans longera scientific solution has not necessarily been reached. For this, precise definition, measurement, and control of the variables must be employed in an experimental framework.The scientific solution looks for broader generalizations.
As the scientist works at problems, he is conscious that he is building a science. He searches for those facts (negative as well as positive), wherever they may be found, that constitute empirical uniformities.
These in turn are studied in the attempt to locate underlying principles.
Thus the practical solution merely an intermediate step and not the end of the road for the scientist. Scientific experimentation is set againstan existing body of generalisation. Thisstatement is an extension of the previous point. Not only does the scientist seek generalizations, but he also wishes to extend their utility by relating
32 Research Methdology themto other generalizations; in short, he wishes to create system of theory. Thus, in the early years of the scientific epoch, experiments with boiling water at low temperatures by varying pressure, and studieson the height of mercury columns as affected by the air pumps, not only were entertaining but led to some practical results.
Entertainment and practical usefulness were not, however, the only consequences of these studies. They were tests that had a bearing upon a body of learning conceijjpng vacuums and the weight of air.
Each test was part of the cumu process that is the growth of
science. The constant change induced in a science by this cumulative process results in the clarification of its generalizations through greater specificationof the conditions underwhich the generalizations hold. This development in turn increases the predictivepower of the science and divides the field into an ever-growing number of specialties, each of which is more abstractand further removed than its parent from the frame of reference of common sense.