ABSTRACT
This chapter examines natural science premises concerning the fundamental uniformity and universalism of nature, and concerning the fundamental interchangeability of human beings who seek to understand and control that nature. Two premises here seem crucial to natural science. First, whatever nature "really" is, we assume that it presents itself in precisely the same way to the same human observer standing at different points in time and space; and second, we assume that it also presents itself in precisely the same way across different human observers standing at the same point in time and space. The premise that nature is uniform, then, declares that no matter where or when a given human being is located, the fundamental natural processes present themselves in the same way. It discusses remedies for manifest noninterchangeability. The chapter analyses five leading objections to applying these premises to sociology, and to employing scientific procedure in sociology.
