Do these people know about psychology, neuroscience, primatology and evolutionary biology? Judging by the way they talk, sociology appears to be in a state similar to psychoanalysis; somewhere between traditional philosophical thinking and modern science.
João de Carvalho I feel like a lot of psychology and sociology would reference brain scan experiments but I honestly can't think of any except the more recent one about holding hands and the prefrontal cortex
Emotion and biology are embedded in the theories. When you look at what groups of people do you get the emotions in their behaviour. I would say. Society shapes and codes the biology. Goffman worked in an "asylum". The label you put on people makes them be that word (more or less). Then everyone has to know Zimbardo experiments. and think about how violence is managed in a society/history.
10:54 -- This is why i have, so far at least, chosen NOT to pursue a PhD or to work primarily in academia. Excess emphasis on concepts and theory squeezes out reality. While ever more theorists talk about reality, human actions are leading ever more species -- possibly including our own -- right up to, and for far too many species, already, over the cliff of extinction. Sociology is far too important to remain theory-focused and -driven. Sociologists, along with economists, historians, philosophers -- and really all other "social scientists", academics, and scientists, would do well to shut down all universities for at least a year in order to walk and travel deep into the world, without any books or papers, equipped only with an open heart and a deep desire and ability to observe and listen to the ever-more dramatic plight of humans, sentients, and life-systems everywhere.
