This is an old topic. Auguste Comte and Emile Durkheim, both foundational to the social sciences, each sought to bring empiricism and the scientific method to t

This is an old topic. Auguste Comte and Emile Durkheim, both foundational to the social sciences, each sought to bring empiricism and the scientific method to the study of social institutions. I would argue that they were largely successful and it is a shift in our modern understanding of science that questions whether Social Science is "real" science. Specifically, I think the power of mathematics as a tool for objective description of natural phenomena has given us the impression that any field without underpinning equations is soft, subjective, and inherently unscientific. Biology is Chemistry is Physics is Math, but the study of social institutions resists reduction to "hard" sciences, to the objectivity of equations. I have even seen people say that Chemistry is not science! In this view, Sociology seems inherently less legitimate than Biology. And I think that is dangerous. If this is how we are to understand science, then we are doomed to belittle and ignore the possibilities for better understanding society and intelligent behavior.