 Dear students, in this module we are going to talk about is sociology a science? We continuously talk about sociology as a science, as a social science and we also try to understand the difference between science or scientific activity and non-scientific activity. However, this question is pretty much debatable among the theoretical sociologists and among different philosophers that whether social science can really be called a science. So sociology uses the scientific methods to study the social phenomena. It relies on empirical observations, data analysis and theory building process to understand the social world around us. So we have established science as a scientific activity that is a theory building process and is based on empiricism in which we collect empirical data as evidence and then make it through certain theoretical assumptions through testable. So this whole process that is going on in natural sciences is what we replicate in social sciences. So when we talk about sociology and if we claim that it is a science, we will have to see whether sociology uses the scientific method as an approach to explore the knowledge. So it definitely relies on the empirical observations and data analysis and theory building process. So for this reason, we consider that sociology as a scientific discipline. So it aims to develop the testable and falsifiable explanations of social phenomena. For example, we take the example of a hypothesis that is empirically testable. Similarly, we look at whether higher educational attainment would lead to higher probability of employment opportunities. So we also look at it as a testable hypothesis. Across time and space, we can also look at it because we have to look at the testability across time and space. This is not a phenomenon of any society. Rather, it can be verified across different societies. Similarly, it is not valid for any specific time period. Rather, we can verify it across different time spaces. So it incorporates the peer-review process and replication to ensure the validity and reliability of findings. So in the scientific knowledge production process, its validity and credibility are done through the peer-review process and its repetition or replication. So we can see whether these findings or conclusions can be drawn or not. So these different angles or indicators lead us to conclude that yes, sociology can be considered a scientific discipline. However, some argue that sociology cannot be sized due to its complexity and subjectivity of social phenomenon. Later on, when we see that by the passage of time that the theories become more and more complex and they endeavor to discuss the foundations of sociology as a discipline, we see that sociology may not be a concrete scientific discipline as we see in natural sciences. For example, the natural sciences objects for the scientific study, the physical objects, the physical words are relatively permanent. Their properties or characteristics are abruptly or suddenly not in the changing process. However, in social sciences, the biggest problem is that when human behavior is very dynamic, it is very complex and subject to change. So due to this, the process through which we acquire that knowledge we later on feel that perhaps due to different confounding variables in human behavior, such changes have been made that this study may not be able to replicate the results. So this is a point of view according to which sociology may not be as credible as the natural sciences. Others argue that sociology can be a science if it adheres to those scientific methods that we have talked about. Examples are that studying the relationship between religion and mental health using the scientific method. So this is an observable phenomenon that such a religion can affect your mental health, that can have a very positive effect, it can affect your spirituality, mental health issues in those people will be relatively less which will have a higher level of religiosity. So in this way, by understanding this phenomenon as empirically testable, we can claim that sociology also bases on empiricism and uses this as a scientific method like other sciences.