ABSTRACT
Sociology’s theoretical sterility became increasingly obvious and a subject of professional concern. Because of sociology’s immature assumptional framework, biologists began mounting sizable invasions into “sociological territory” in the 1970s. Sociobiology insured its acceptance outside of the intellectual community when, in the mid-1980s, it began to demonstrate success with technologies to deal with major social problems, including drug abuse, poverty, and certain types of crime. Sociology, during the same period, began to suffer the effects of lower public funding; and younger sociologists— those who had gotten some biological training— were recruited into the many well paying and difficult-to-fill sociobiology positions about as quickly as they graduated. This continued until the mid-1990s, when sociobiology departments were producing sufficient graduates of their own. The point at which sociology’s jurisdiction over the scientific study of social phenomena was irreversibly lost probably lies somewhere in the latter 1970s.
