Received: from pewtrusts.com (pewtrusts.com [204.242.21.3]) by csf.Colorado.EDU (8.7.6/8.7.3/CNS-4.0p) with SMTP id LAA27037 for ; Wed, 25 Jun 1997 11:23:36 -0600 (MDT) Received: from PEW-Message_Server by pewtrusts.com with Novell_GroupWise; Wed, 25 Jun 1997 13:24:18 -0500 Message-Id: Date: Wed, 25 Jun 1997 12:24:48 -0500 From: "Jonathon E. Mote" To: socgrad@csf.colorado.edu Subject: tracking -Reply Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Disposition: inline On June 25, Alan Davidson wrote: >I think the point I brought up a week and a half ago are general unwritten >rules along the lines of "white males are expected to do sociology as a >science, and therefore ignore the concerns of women and people of color, >etc" and its obverse. I'd like to pick up on this statement, and I believe Rodney asserted something similar along the lines of "sociology if pursued as a science becomes unsociological." I guess I don't understand, and this might be a function of my naivete. If sociology is not pursued as a science (hence its designation as a social science) then what is it? I don't want to get into a larger discussion about what constitutes a science (an exercise that seems to me largely driven by a desire to either emulate or distance oneself from the natural sciences). Rather, I think we can easily agree on the following characterization of sociology as a science: the systematic study of social phenomena that involves observation, description and theoretical explanation. Given this characterization, how does its pursuit necessarily lead one, or in this case a white male, to ignore the concerns of women or people of color? With reference to Rodney's comment, how does its pursuit necessarily negate sociological concerns? Please know that I'm not trying to be argumentative. I really want to understand the thinking behind these statements. Believe me, I understand that science is never entirely neutral (ideologically or otherwise), but these comments seem to endow "science" with properties or a purpose that don't ring true to me. It could be because I'm a white male (from Iowa, you betcha), but I have applied my "scientific" tools of analysis to urban inner-city environments, and race, gender and class are critically important factors in that analysis. Jonathon E. Mote jem@pewtrusts.com