Stuff and Nonsense about Social Surveys and Observation

There appear to be two camps in sociology that have a long history of mutual suspicion and disrespect. The “hard heads,” the men who would measure, say with Lord Kelvin: “If you cannot measure, your knowledge is meagre and unsatisfactory.” The “soft heads,” scorning the precise for insight and the “sociological imagination,” would send men out into the real world. They are “live” sociologists “living” sociology.