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Is sociology a science? The relation ship between sociology and science has been the focus of a great deal of debate. One of the simplest definitions of sociology is 'the study of people in social groups'. Sociology is not a unified subject. As well as several broad perspectives each with different theoretical strands, there is an important methodological division between those who favour quantitative research and those who collect data in an attempt to study the meanings behind the social behaviour of people. Depending on the way science is defined, some sociology may meet the scientific criteria whilst others do not. The difficulty with talking about basing research on scientific principle is that we have differing versions of those principles. The functionalist perspective would agree that sociology is a science, and like the natural scientists see an organism e.g. the human body as a system that works together sociologists attempt to...

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