The Vast Majority of Sociology is Useless.

My opponent has made a compelling case for his dislike of sociology (in particular researcher Steve Bruce), yet dropped several areas it is of clear use, and complained that he doesn't like that it's useful in others. His own selected definition stipulates if something serves "any purpose" it is not useless. Defenses To begin, I believe previous statements of mine from last round already cover much of pro's rebuttals. 1. "That something is not useful to everyone, does not mean it's useful to no one. That it's not of optimum utility, does not mean it is of zero utility." 2. "The resolution deals clearly with uselessness, not if it is negative." 3. "...does not negate the use of generalizations about their larger community." Quality of Life Pro's rebuttals such as "They’re not exactly what we call as 'objective' especially under scientific standards," have already been addressed under another point, as he "assumes that something must be objective to be of any use." I have already shown that regardless of how objective sociology is, it improves education, general health, and outright saves lives [8, 14, 15]. If saving lives is "completely irrelevant" I am unsure what would fit pro's baseline for relevancy. The survey conducted by Morning Consult is of unquestionable use, as we've seen it put to some purpose by journalist Jesse Byrnes as the basis for a political commentary article for which he was paid [1], and yes I do take for granted that his paycheck is useful to him; the newspaper itself certainly enjoys the increased traffic that headline generates. Complaining that the cited survey was mainly about views on drugs (the word drug is contained in 80 of the questions, or as my opponent puts it "a handful"), but was also useful to a newspaper talking about the election, seems self-defeating when it demonstrates the number of people whom it is useful to has been increased exponentially with the inclusion of just one additional question. Complaining that a statistic of how many people would consider doing something, "fails to consider financial opportunities, ... [etc.]" is meritless, when it never claims anything about how many people would flee (or attempt to flee) the nation, merely how many (from a sample size of a couple thousand, then simplified into a percentage) said they would contemplate it. And complaining that it did not have enough side questions about different countries on other continents ("Saudi Arabia or Iran") for consideration, directly counters my opponent's own complaints about Extraneous Variables. I do however agree that different phrasing of questions yields different results, it's flexibility, understanding this allows smart researchers to design different studies for different purposes, to include cross studies to understand differences in answer sets for similar questions. Attacking the Better Life Index for having 11 different variables people can quickly look at, when Bhutan uses a single measurement, on the grounds that 11 is somehow more simplistic than 1 (to quote him "After all, one’s migration route is ultimately defined by just one indication of life."), seems like simple lunacy. My case specifically included the word "visit," because most people enjoy visiting different countries (if lacking the means, still researching hypothetical vacations for fun), and knowing a little more of what to expect is useful (as source 8 pointed out, failing in this has resulted in people being tortured to death for minor misunderstandings). Relations Apparently I fail "to consider that the multi-national corporations themselves abuse third world countries." This is true, and this abuse is wholly to the favor of sociology being useful (useful has nothing to do with being nice). As my opponent's own source points out, NIKE used knowledge of Viet Nam's differing social structure to (in addition to various other crimes) all but brainwash people into submission: "Labor reporters said they had been ordered to write only positive stories about NIKE." Useful to them, and certainly useful to every one of their customers who has enjoyed decreased expense. Further this kind of thing is done by multi-national corporations in general (pro's point was specifically plural, as in not exclusive to NIKE), proving that sociology is frequently of use. I outright fail to see the point of complaining that the sociology matches the definition of sociology, rather than being more concerned with individual people's problems ("more concerned with social structures at play than they are at concern with people’s problems"). On the same point, understanding that people of different cultures define their needs differently, is incredibly useful to addressing what they feel are problems [2]. Further I have shown that it is useful to understanding average differences as seen with the Hofstede Chart [5, 6], and my opponent from Hungary's fine example of the increased "cynicism and pessimism" indicated on the chart via decreased indulgence compared to the USA [5], which is not universal of all people from there, but he chose to match the norms as already predicted by a pre-generated sociological comparison. I find it very useful to predict people, it helps me win debates, and in this sample my predictions held true verifying their use. I do not need to refute any sociological studies for any of the above to be true, and certainly not ones which deal with religion when the one I just used does not address that area. Advertising I am unsure why, but my opponent complains that an argument made in a round to which rebuttals were not allowed, was not a rebuttal ("...lacks any coherent rebuttal to the anti-sociological arguments that I have presented"). Then he complaints that sociology is useful in the job market, which is leaving the use of it unchallenged. Yes, he does touch on how he dislikes it morally, but the definition of useful has nothing to do with morals. "Grants and funding mean absolutely nothing," actually it means money changing hands, people being employed, etc., if my opponent is opposed to money he could start a debate on that, but his dislike is off topic in this one. He does bring up his analogy about Tychonian Science, which if applied the way he wants to apply things to the whole field of Sociology would mean Astronomy itself would have been entirely abandoned, rather than improved as was the case. Key Dropped Points: 1. Taboos (to include the torture/death connection when ignoring sociology). 2. Entertainment (sociology is unquestionably effective at helping to make better television programing for us; the frequency of this alone calls into question if the Vast Majority is put to no purpose). Continued Rebuttals The Paradigm of the Secularization Thesis Interesting Strawman in place of my case... "When I argued the case for social desirability bias, Con argues the alternative claiming that people prefer less community-mandated faith such as attending a church." Anyone is welcome to confirm that my argument was not about religious preference, but on the subject of methodologies, namely that people behaving a certain way due to social pressures does not actually change the accuracy of a measurement of their social behaviors since that is how they are behaving. Rather than address my actual explanation for why studies gather Extraneous Variables outside the precise ones they want to study, my opponent made another blatant Strawman fallacy: "None of the chronological secularization thesis order made by Steve Bruce provided a link to 'Elo from Debate.org'" my point was clearly addressing his complaint of methodologies general, in particular why studies need to gather Extraneous Variables to avoid being invalidated by Lurking Variables [12]. As for if a lack of "total control over variables speaks of it's validity," there is never such a thing in any science, certainly not in Astronomy (the only other named one in this debate). By side stepping into that weird strawman, my actual point about the need to gather extraneous variables is untouched. Inherent Founding-Father Biasness Again Strawmanning, "Con attempts of appeal to the internet's toxic anti-religious dissidents." This was an area I did not once mention religion within, I did however pull pro's own complaints about "Karl Marx, Simone De Beauvoir and Antonio Gramsci" as a reminder that their work has been put to many purposes making it by definition not useless, which pro has decided to leave unchallenged. Queue of Legitimate Concerns I'm unsure what special skills would enable a 62-year-old religious studies major to cure cancer, nor who would hire him for such. Granted as someone who makes money selling books on religion in society, he could currently donate money to cancer research. Conclusion A number of cases have been presented by my opponent and I. Here is a breakdown on the majority... 1. Paradigm of the Secularization, I don't personally find it useful, but pro chose to assert that the theory is of "some use to certain individuals, particularly to those that harbor anti-religious sentiments." They apparently find it useful even if it's flawed. 2. Founding-Father Bias was utterly dropped by pro after I caught that he'd implied those pioneers work to still be useful (even if we dislike those uses). 3. The Morning Consult's survey, which was put to clear use by a major news outlet (if a better study would have been more useful, does not diminish that this one was useful to them). 4. Two Hofstede nation reviews and a cross comparison chart, which the closest my opponent came to rebutting was asserting that the only difference between people is their problems. 5. Cultural Taboos are good to know if traveling. 6. Disease Rates in different areas. 7. The negative results from lack of sex education in America. 8. NIKE and related matters. 9. Advantages in advertising and careers. Sources All source references may be found within my previous rounds (it's why I use continuous numbering).