Wikipedia: Sociology of religion/Talk

This is an interesting article, but it makes it sound as if Stark and Bainbridge were the only two people who wrote anything of interest on the sociology of religion. It is also questionable in places from the neutral point of view (I hope those who know more about the subect will help, here) and mixes what appears to be the author's own theorizing with established theories--at least, it's difficult for this reader to see what the difference is. I'd comment further, and go to work on the article itself, but I am running short on time...sorry.

OK, I admit, I wrote it. I admit there is heaps more to the topic than Stark & Bainbridge -- it's just their work is the limit of my knowledge of the field... none of it is my own theorizing -- I took it all from their work; how established their theories are I really don't know since as I said their work is the limit of my knowledge of the topic. As to being not of the neutral point of view, I admit some of it may sound bad from a religious perspective (e.g. the Psychopathology or Normal Relations model) but that is their theory, not my bias. -- Simon J Kissane

"I admit some of it may sound bad from a religious perspective," which is exactly why it belongs here, in "Sociology of Religion"! This is indeed how professors sound who study religion. Those who - ahem - get involved with their research subjects don't end up being taken very seriouisly professionally. I am thinking about a person I know of who studies Rastas. Who is reputed to be a little too closely involved. Ahem. And a professor of mine who studied Santeria altars in New Jersey and the Bronx. We _all_ wanted to know if he had sacrificed goats himself. Nice entry, Simon; it's useful as it is and provides lots of starting off places for those who want to work on it. --MichaelTinkler

What about adding sociobiological and memetic theories of religion here ? --Taw

Do you mean someone actually takes "memetic" theories of religion seriously? That's something I'd like details on, if so. --LMS

I would be *really* surprised if correct (confirmable by experiment) theory weren't sociobiological. There is no other cultural evolution theory with solid mathematical basis. And it seems that gene-only theories don't work well for explaining cultures, so it will most probably be meme-based sociology. --Taw

I would be really surprised if there were any correct (confirmable by experiment) theory of the sociology of religion.

This is not to say that I see a problem with sociologists or the fact that they should study religion. It's just that I've never met a sociologist who expects to be able to do predictive experimentation on human populations. So, the best sociological theories will necessarily be based on other kinds of epistemic justification than confirmation by experiment.

I personally don't take mimetic and sociobiological theories seriously in almost any domain, but when dealing with human populations the sociobiological theories I've heard are mostly ad hoc, and are universally un-falsifiable. I think it may be reasonable to put some information on mimetic and sociobiological theories on this page, as there are a number of sociologists who've taken these things seriously, but there is significant dissent, and that should be recorded too. --Mark Christensen

Most sociologists are pseudoscientists. There is no sciece without experimental confirmation, at least in mathematical simulation. Old generation of sociologists must go away, as they aren't any more effective than philosophers were in physics or biology.

Sociobiology was many times experimentally confirmed on non-human animals, so if somebody "don't take it seriously" without presenting better theory, he has nothing to do with science.

And btw. that's the way sociobiology works: 1. make adhoc theory 2. try it out mathematically. 3. repeat if needed

You'd be surprised how often it just works.

And basic memetics was confirmed in human populations by studying time/space distribution of details in major idea systems. --Taw

: Well, try Stark & Bainbridge's theory, which is the only theory the article mentions at the moment. They :claim their theory is empirically testable, though so far little work I am aware of has tried to test it. :(Observe though [1]).--Simon J Kissane

Well, it only tells why somebody starts religion, not why it becomes popular. --Taw

: Sociologists often do experimentation in a sense. They can't really do experiments of the form 'set the :independent variable, watch what happens to the dependent variable'; but they can do a lot of observations :and other research (surveys, interviews, etc.) which can then be analysed by statistical means.
: --Simon J Kissane

"Experimentation with sense" is just another name for Pseudoscience. If they can't do real experiments, they should use mathematics, computer simulations etc. That's exactly why old sociologists will be replaced by sociobiologists. --Taw

I like "old generations of sociologists must go away." My, my, my. Let's at least pretend some respect for the insights of a field with a track record until the sociobiologists develop one. The idea that computer simulations of human populations are anywhere near useful (just think of traffic modelling, which goodness knows the U.S. government has *poured* money into) is at this stage something that looks like a faith-based exercise. The fact that "major idea systems" depends on the human reporting of those ideas also makes their mathematical modelling somewhat suspect. I'm a historian, and I know how "idea systems" get reported! --MichaelTinkler

Old sociology was exactly like old philosophy. Philosophers tried to explain physics, biology etc by non-mathematical and non-scientific means. Fortunately, biology and physics is currently being run by people who use mathematical simulations and the scientific method. Old philosophers went away. We have the same situation today in social sciences. Too much ideology, too many unstated axioms in every reasoning and too much politics. For example historians still don't agree on why things happen the way they happen, they only provide raw data and theories not based on any solid evidence (ok, that's blatant generalization). The same thing applies to most other social sciences - some useful observations, some primitive and weakly checked generalizations, very little math and almost no experiments.

Of course it doesn't mean that all non-sociobiological theories are false and worthless, it just mean that most of them is unchecked and should be treated with some distance. --Taw

How many articles could you have written in the time it took you to engage in the above? Wikipedia isn't a discussion forum, it's an encyclopedia. --LMS