I am a sociologist and my discipline is a science, although it does not match the benchmarks in the paper we read this week as well as demography does. Sociological papers are not as widely cited as demography, and sociologists do not totally agree on the key research questions. However, sociologists do provide testable hypotheses, give some kinds of persuasive explanations, agree with the idea that “inequality” is the main issue, publicize some useful terms (e.g., “socialization”), and formulate social policies. Also, some harder sciences overlap with sociology. For example, besides demography, social networks is studied by mathematicians, physicists, and sociologists.
