First Essay Question

Discuss whether or not Sociology is a

scientific discipline. Provide 3 primary reasons to support

your position

Essay Grading Guidelines

Expository Style:Expository Style: Opening paragraphOpening paragraph Body; closingBody; closing

Proper GrammarProper Grammar PunctuationPunctuation Tense, spelling, etc.Tense, spelling, etc.

RhetoricRhetoric-- terms; conceptsterms; conceptsLogicLogic-- examples; statistical supportexamples; statistical supportEfficientEfficient-- brief, concisebrief, conciseEffectiveEffective-- clearclear

Essay Guidelines –continued-

Proper Citations (do not plagarize, give credit where credit is due)

- adhere to ASA referencing system

Example: The sociological imagination

concept refers to….” the ability to

see the relationship between individual experiences and the larger society” (Kendall, 2008: pg. 5).

- appearing at the end of your essays, is a bibliography section).

General Critique of drafts

After careful review  most did not king substantiate their position.

In other words,

is largely conjecture, namely for the most part, only  your opinion  addressed.

Need to provide references; ground your position

Taken from Purdue Owl

In sum,  you need to ferret out and embellish upon 

your argument, while using references, to subst

antiate  your claims.

Is the world really made up of totally chaotic, totally random events and situations, etc.?  

Yes, indeed, the natural sciences examine natural phenomena, that is evolving, while the social sciences in turn  grapple with human behavior, societies, and their institutions, that are  examining their evolving state.  

Some though, rather than adhering to the scientific method for offering explanation for these ever-changing phenomena;  rendering hypotheses and objectively testing them, in the quest to refine theoretical perspectives within the context of certain phenomena, others turn for example  to religion in order to attempt in making sense of what you allude to  as being just merely, chaos.  There are others that just go with the flow, seeking entertainment and/or pharmacological intervention to cope with a world that seemingly is far` too overwhelming without use of such coping mechanisms.

The truth about all scientific disciplines.

All scientific knowledge is evolving, so to speak, soft (malleable).

EXAMPLE: Why is Mars red color?

According to a new hypothesis (sic theory), wind erosion, not water, to give mars its ruddy color in the relatively recent past. Credit: NASA/ESA/Hubble Team

How Mars Turned Red: Surprising New Theory

Clara MoskowitzStaff WriterSPACE.com 9/21/2009…

Until recently, Mars' color was thought to be a product of liquid water, which scientists think flowed over the planet's surface billions of years ago, rusting rocks.

But after the Mars Exploration Rovers Spirit and Opportunity landed on the planet in 2004, they found evidence of certain minerals that would have been destroyed by water, suggesting that the red dust on Mars never came into contact with flowing water.

"That was a surprise to everybody," said Jonathan Merrison of the Aarhus Mars Simulation Laboratory in Denmark.

Now new research has found a possible mechanism to explain Mars' rusty color without liquid water. In fact, the study implies that the red tones on the planet are a relatively recent development. A simple grinding down of rocks from erosion could produce a red mineral that stains the dust on Mars, the new thinking goes.

IN THE LAB:

To test the idea, Merrison and colleagues sealed samples of quartz sand in glass flasks and used a machine to tumble them over and over. They found that the gentle process, which approximates the mild wind flowing over the Martian surface, is enough to cause erosion, reducing about 10 percent of the sand grains to fine dust particles over seven months. The scientists then added powdered magnetite, an iron oxide present on Mars, to the flasks. As the researchers continued to tumble the samples, they observed the sand getting redder and redder. "We think we have a process that explains how the dust became red without liquid water, which doesn't seem to fit in with the data," Merrison told SPACE.com.

As the sand grains turned over in the flasks and hit each other, they fractured, breaking apart some chemical bonds at the newly-exposed surfaces. When these surfaces came into contact with the magnetite, an oxygen atom could be transferred from quartz to magnetite, forming a new mineral, hematite. Hematite is an iron oxide that is deep red in color. It only takes a little hematite, Merrison said, to stain all the dust a reddish hue. "When we finished we could see red stuff on the side of the bottle," he said.

Same on Mars? Though they can't yet prove that this is what happened on Mars, it seems like a plausible explanation, and doesn't require water for the reddening process. In fact, since the process can occur relatively quickly, it could be that the thin red layer of dust on Mars is somewhat new.

"I think it means that Mars wasn't always red," Merrison said. "Before this work, I think most people in the field kind of thought the Martian surface was billions of years old and had always been red. This work seems to imply that it could be quite recent – millions of years instead of billions of years.“

Merrison presented the results last week at the European Planetary Science Congress in Germany.

APA Research Paper (Mirano)

Source: Diana Hacker (Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2006).This paper follows the style guidelines in the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 5th ed.(2001), and the APA Style Guide to Electronic References (2007).Obesity in Children iCan Medication Cure Obesity in Children?A Review of the LiteratureLuisa MiranoPsychology 107, Section BProfessor KangOctober 31, 2004XXXXMarginal annotations indicate APA-style formatting and effective writing.Source: Diana

Headings, centered,help readers followthe organization.In a signal phrase,the word “and”links the names oftwo authors; thedate is given inparentheses.Because the author(Carmona) is notnamed in the signalphrase, his nameand the dateappear in parentheses,along with theparagraph numberof the electronicsource.

DVD: Understanding Sociology:Making Sense of Sociological Theory

Published by Insight MediaServes 3-fold purpose:

New York, New York

ISBN 001170748

1. Excellent overview of the primary sociological theories that will be at the backdrop the entire class;

2. Present examples of sociological research;

3. Is a British Production: - will be talking about culture later in the

evening;

Society, Social Structure, and

Interaction

Chapter OutlineSocial Structure: The

Macrolevel Perspective

Components of Social Structure

Societies, Technology and Sociocultural Change

Stability and Change in Societies

WILL BE ADDRESSED NEXT SECTION OF THE COURSE, NOT IN THIS EXAM:

Social Interaction: The Microlevel Perspective

Future Changes in Society, Social Structure and Interaction

Social Structure and InteractionSocial interaction is the

process by which people act toward or respond to other people.

Social structure is the framework of societal institutions (economy, politics, and religion) and social practices (rules and social roles) that make up a society and organize and limit people’s behavior.

Sharpening Your FocusHow do societies change over

time?What are the components of

social structure?Why do societies have shared

patterns of social interaction?How are daily interactions

similar to being onstage?Do positive changes in society

occur through individual efforts or institutional efforts?

Social Structure: The Macrolevel PerspectiveAt the macrolevel, the social

structure of a society has several elements:Social institutionsGroupsStatusesRolesNorms

Social InstitutionsA social institution is a set of

beliefs and rules that establishes how a society will meet its basic social needs.

There are five basic social institutions: Family, Religion, Education, Economy and Government or politics.

Functionalists: Five Tasks of Social Institutions1.Replacing members.2.Teaching new members.3.Producing, distributing, and

consuming goods and services.4.Preserving order.5.Providing and maintaining a

sense of purpose.

Types of SocietiesSocial scientists have

identified five types of societies based on various levels of subsistence technology: Hunting and GatheringHorticultural and Pastoral

AgrarianIndustrialPostindustrial

Hunting and Gathering Societies

In contemporary hunting and gathering societies, women contribute to the food supply by gathering plants and hunting for small animals.

Hunting and Gathering SocietiesUntil about 10,000 years ago,

hunting and gathering societies were the only type of human society that existed.

They use simple technology for hunting animals and gathering vegetation.

Horticultural and Pastoral SocietiesBetween 13,000 and 7,000

B.C.E., there was a shift from collecting food to producing food.

This has been attributed to three factors: Depletion of supply of large

game animalsIncrease in the size of the

human populationW weather and environmental

changes that occurred by the end of the ice age

Agrarian SocietiesAgrarian societies use the

technology of large-scale farming, including animal-drawn or energy-powered plows and equipment, to produce their food supply.

Farming made it possible for people to spend their entire lives in the same location.

Industrial SocietiesIndustrial societies are based on

technology that mechanizes production.

Industrialism involves the application of scientific knowledge to the technology of production, making it possible for machines to do work previously done by people or animals.

Postindustrial SocietiesIn

postindustrial economies,

many service & information-based jobs are located in countries far removed from where a corporation’s consumers actually live.

Postindustrial SocietiesA postindustrial society is one in

which technology supports a service- and information-based economy.

Postmodern societies are characterized by an economy in which large numbers of people provide or apply information or are employed in service jobs.

Computers and Internet Access in the Home: 1984 to 2003

Social Institutions and StabilityThe first day

at a new school had a different meaning for children displaced by the Katrina disaster. What part do social institutions play in providing stability in your life?

Re-creating Social Structure

After a crisis, people recreate social structure through groups and organizations established to deal with catastrophes and by reestablishing their social networks and statuses as quickly as possible.

Wall Street JournalSEPTEMBER 15, 2009 Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page A2

Populist Vein Resurfaces in Protests By GERALD F. SEIB

What is populism?

EXAMPLE OF A SOCIAL MOVEMENT

INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY

The buses that rolled into the U.S. capital over the weekend, carrying protesters steamed up about government spending and decrying the advent of "socialism," may appear to represent a rich new vein in American politics.

In fact, though, these Tea Party Patriots and like-minded brethren represent the latest resurfacing of a vein that has always been there and that simply goes below ground from time to time. This vein is populist and antiestablishment; it alternates between suspicion of government in general, and anger at the idea that government seems to be doing more to help fat cats or the other guy.

In some fashion or another, it has been around since the time George Washington quelled the Whiskey Rebellion.

protesters have much in common with the Ross Perot foot soldiers of the 1990s, says WSJ's Executive Washington Editor Gerald Seib.

The last big appearance came when Ross Perot tapped into it in the 1990s. Mr. Perot, who ran for the presidency in 1992, when he got 19% of the vote, and in 1996, didn't create the movement then, any more than Fox News broadcaster Glenn Beck has created it now. He simply gave voice to it.

There are differences, of course, between the Perot foot soldiers and the protesters who now show up at town-hall meetings and marched on the Capitol on Saturday. The Perot phenomenon arose out of anger at a Republican president, George H.W. Bush, while today's movement bores in on a Democratic one, Barack Obama. The Perot movement tended to focus on the dangers of deficits, while today's more generally is focused on government spending -- and there's a subtle but important difference.

But the movements of then and now have a lot more in common, and there are some lessons to be learned about today's politics by looking back at what transpired in the '90s.

During the flowering of the Perot movement, I spent some time chronicling the comings and goings of a group of Perotistas in Pennsylvania. They jumped on the Texas billionaire's bandwagon early, later moved out to form their own political party (called, in a precursor of today's movement, the Patriot Party), then joined forces again with Mr. Perot when he formed his own national third party, the Reform Party.

But the movements of then and now have a lot more in common, and there are some lessons to be learned about today's politics by looking back at what transpired in the '90s.

During the flowering of the Perot movement, I spent some time chronicling the comings and goings of a group of Perotistas in Pennsylvania. They jumped on the Texas billionaire's bandwagon early, later moved out to form their own political party (called, in a precursor of today's movement, the Patriot Party), then joined forces again with Mr. Perot when he formed his own national third party, the Reform Party.

It would be hard to find political activists whose motives were more pure, almost innocently so.

Yet like most insurgents, the Pennsylvania folks also spent a fair amount of time arguing with one another -- often over whether they loved Mr. Perot or were being controlled by him and his organization -- and occasionally lapsed into internal squabbles with roots in local battles of days gone by.

But they knew they were angry, felt they had little say within the two existing parties and were worried most of all about how their tax dollars were being spent -- all the same hallmarks of today's movement. It's highly likely, in fact, that some folks who were Perotistas then are Tea Party Patriots now.

Agence France-Presse/Getty Images Ross Perot speaks outside the Capitol in Washington in 1993.And that suggests a few lessons to remember:

These aren't partisan movements. The Perot followers were first angry at the first President Bush, then later easily transferred some of that anger to a Democratic president, Bill Clinton. Mostly they were mad at the establishment. Eventually, in fact, many ultimately focused their anger on Mr. Perot himself, after they came to believe he was trying to manipulate them. Which leads to lesson No. 2:

Movements like these aren't easy to control. If a citizen is motivated by anger that the government is trying to control his life, he isn't likely to easily accept the idea that some other person or institution is trying to control him, either. Some of today's insurgents are angry at bank bailouts, some at the government takeover of auto companies, some at the prospect of a bigger government role in health care -- but the unifying characteristic is that they are angry at any kind of central control at all. Republicans who think they can harness Tea Party Patriots and their anger may be in for a rude surprise of their own.It isn't really ideological. Perot followers were often thought to be conservatives, but one of their most powerful motivating forces was antipathy to free trade -- a classically conservative idea. Similarly, it's doubtful now that many of those senior citizens on the buses want their Medicare coverage turned into a voucher program, as some conservatives suggest, or share the view of many economic conservatives that the country benefits overall from immigration.

The movement is very much about how the government spends money. The Perot army and today's share that much in common -- but this also is an area where they diverge in an important way. What agitated Mr. Perot, and by extension his followers, was the idea that the government was spending money it didn't have, borrowing to finance the practice, and driving up the federal deficit in the process. It was shoddy management almost as much as spending that angered them. To rectify that, Mr. Perot advocated not just spending cuts but tax increases, including a hefty gasoline tax.Today's protesters are more vocal about the level of spending, less about the way it's being financed. Thus, the protesters don't rally around a cry of "lower deficits," but rather "less government." It's more than a semantic difference -- and also a natural, perhaps even predictable, reaction to a period of intense government effort to rescue financial markets and the economy.

Write to Gerald F. Seib at jerry.seib@wsj.com

WILL POPULISM SERVE AS AN IMPETUS FOR RESTRUCTURING OUR POLTICAL INSTITUTION?

Technoeconomic Bases Of Society

Change from Prior Society

EconomicCharacteristics

Control of Surplus

Hunting and

Gathering —

Hunting game,

gathering roots and

berries

None

Horticultural And

Pastoral

Use of hand tools

Planting crops,

domestication of animals

Men begin to control

societies

Agrarian

Use of animal drawn plows

Labor-intensive farming

Men who own land or herds

Technoeconomic Bases Of Society

InheritanceControl over procreation

Women’s Status

Industrial BilateralMen - but less

so in later stages

Low

Post Industrial

Bilateral MixedVaries by

class, race and age

Technoeconomic Bases Of Society

InheritanceControl over procreation

Women’s Status

Hunting andGathering

None NoneRelative equality

Horticultural And Pastoral

Shared patrilineal

nod matrilineal

Increasingly by men

Decreasing in move to pastoralism

Agrarian patrilineal

Men-to ensure

legitimacy of heirs

Low

Technoeconomic Bases Of Society

Change from Prior Society

EconomicCharacteristics

Control of Surplus

Industrial Invention of

steam engine

Mechanized production of

goods.

Men who own means of

production.

Post Industrial

Invention of computer

and development of “high tech”

society

Information and service

economy

Corporate shareholders And high-tech entrepreneurs