700 Laws in Sociology

Description

Sociology is an unusual field. Unlike other scientific disciplines, such as physics or chemistry, there are no hard rules; all sociological rules and theories are conclusions based on a majority of supporting evidence, since experiments–much less controlled, repeatable ones–are nearly impossible to conduct due to sociology’s inherent scale; thus, all sociological laws are merely projections of future trends.

For your convenience (and your pleasure), Mark Bird has compiled another handy book filled with sociological laws. 700 Laws in Sociology was irritating. Though the information was presented clearly and coherently, and though the book was engaging, at every step, the text idolizes European nations while ignoring their many flaws, makes unfair comparisons, draws non-sequential conclusions from evidence, and inserts blatantly biased remarks, which makes all the laws in the book, most of which sound like common sense, suspect. With any field, skewing results and drawing false conclusions can be damaging, but with a field as fluid as sociology, such practices can be disastrous.

For a casual read, this work is acceptable and interesting, but I would not recommend it as a scholarly resource.