Sociology

College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

Sociology for "Scientific" Eyes
Social Processes: Social Order/Deviance Teaching Ideas

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• Organizational deviance and the sociology of risk—“normal accidents” (Chs. Perrow, Normal Accidents:Living with High-Risk Technologies NY: BasicBooks, 1994)
  • Challenger (D. Vaughn, The Challenger Decision: Risky Technology, Culture and Deviance at NASA. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995)
  • Turkish Airlines 1974 crash cargo latch assembly
  • Ford Pinto
  • BART unsafe design of automatic computer-control system --> new code of ethics for IEEE
• Scientific misconduct (M. Fox & J. Braxton,”Misconduct and Social Control in Science: Issues, Problems, Solutions”, Journal of Higher Education v. 65,Issue3, 1994, pp. 373-383)—
  • Soman’s fabrication of data and its retraction in 1979,,
  • Spector’s unreplicable explanations of virus as unified causeof cancer, 1981;
  • Fleck’s misrepresentation of data on cholesterol & heart disease;
  • Bruenig’s articles on nonexistent experiments of psychotropic drugs to control behavior of mentally retarded in institutions;
  • professional societies monitoring scientists and research:
  • Sokal’s intentionally fabricated physics article
• The development of IRB ethics and monitoring (see http://cme.nci.nih.gov/)
• Tobacco industry’s sponsored experiments and undisclosed results
• Marijuana for medical use (issue is summarized well in Schaefer & Kassop Instructor’s Resource Manual to Accompany Schaefer’s Sociology, 7th edition, pp. 102-3)
  • Cybercrime
    • Piracy of software, music
    • Identity theft
      • Good example: The film “The Matrix” (just what is the deviance in it)
    • Hacking
    • Use of internet for terrorist training

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