expressed laws of physics which apply to the equivalent terms in that field are directly transferable to a social physics .
Another physicalist approach was that of Parsons and Bales ( Parson and Bales 1949 ), who attempted to find analogous laws within sociology to Newton ’ s laws of motion . What this system and that of Stewart have in common is a desire to model sociological variables mathematically : However , given the arguable lack of success of this approach in economics , it is hard to imagine that a great degree of accuracy would be achievable . Dodd ’ s S-theory , however , does not fall into this trap , as although it describes quantitative data , it does not construct mathematical models , does not concern itself with the numeric values of data and does not seek to make predictions on the basis of assumed ‘ laws ’ of sociology .
3 . S-Theory : a subminiature guide
Dodd is held by some modern mathematical sociologists as one of the founders of the subdiscipline of mathematical sociology ( which is still pursued in America ), despite the fact that later researchers adopted a more traditional form of mathematical modelling in connection with aspects of society , analogous to that used in meteorology , for example . As a consequence , , S- theory is still a unique approach , as instead of the numerical values of societal data , it focuses on the ‘ units ’ of that data and upon what might be thought of as its ‘ structure ’. To give a motoring analogy , it is a focus on the units of speed rather than the numerical value of the speed itself .
Generalising the concept , the units of speed can also be inches per minute ( useful for timing snails ) or kilometres per second ( handy in rocket science ), or indeed any combination of a unit of distance divided by a unit of time . It is in this generalised form , [ speed ] = [ distance ]/[ time ], that dimensional analysis is revealed , and immediately provides a link to S-theory , as the ‘ T ’ in ‘ T I L P ’ is [ time ] and the ‘ L ’, as [ length ], represents the same unit as [ distance ] ( Dodd 1942 , 35 ).
The units of mass are not usually of interest in the social sciences , whereas quantities such as populations and their many characteristics clearly are . The various qualitative characteristics within a situation Dodd termed ‘ indicants ’, which could “ be anything of , or pertaining to , human beings , other than time , space and the number of persons .” ( Dodd 1942 , 28 ) including qualitative data of this nature .