Word: sociologists
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...economy, together with rising costs for health services and education, has led many young couples to postpone marriage and children. Birth control and environmental campaigns against the population explosion have also had an effect. Liberalized abortion laws in 17 states have brought down the birth rate. University of Chicago Sociologist Donald J. Bogue has another suggestion. Among other things, says Bogue, a world in which the young reject their parents, use drugs and break laws may make parenthood seem simply less inviting than it once...
...From the viewpoint of hagiography, the martyr is the ultimate Christian hero, the most noble of saints. Sociology, with a cooler eye, sees him as something else: a special kind of social deviant. As Sociologist Robert K. Merton points out, the "historically significant nonconformist," his own definition of martyr, often risks his life for a variety of motives, some noble, some not. There are cases, he notes, in which martyrdom may be little else than "an expression of primary narcissism" or "a need for punishment." Like Camus's Rebel, or Peter Viereck's "unadjusted man," the martyr...
...Berger, 42, perhaps America's leading religious sociologist, first won attention with The Noise of Solemn Assemblies, a trenchant attack on the smug, conventional Protestant churches of the 1950s. Back then, Berger reminded the ecumenical leaders last week, he and other critics seemed to be "banging against the locked gates of majestically self-confident institutional edifices." The situation could not be more different today. In the years since, said Berger, Protestants have suffered a failure of nerve and are wallowing in "masochistic self-laceration" or "hysterical defensiveness." He bluntly told the ecumenists that their efforts to regroup...
...force him to stoop into an ungraceful and uncomfortable position for face-to-face conversations. He could sneer at the dangers tall men face, such as low tree branches and the cramped back seats of cabs and tiny cars. He could even nominate a short man for President. Sociologist Feldman, who measures a full 5 ft. 4 in., is no doubt available...
...fall of the Roman Empire has traditionally been left to philosophers and historians, who have variously placed the blame on wars, epidemics, social inequalities, indolence and overambition. More recently, specialists from other disciplines have taken their turn at scrutinizing Rome's downfall. A few years ago, a sociologist suggested that the empire had withered away after its upper classes died off from lead poisoning caused by lead-lined drinking and cooking vessels. Now a geochemist has concluded that Rome's troubles derived largely from the loss of its supply of silver, which fatally disrupted the Roman monetary system...