Reply #277: Don't put words in my mouth, thanks. [View All]

[X_Digger]

Nowhere did I claim that it was indicative of all sociological studies- you'll notice I specified that this seems to be a particular trait of a subset of the epidemiologists who study the issue of guns:

Much of the public health research on guns (on one side) has been done as epidemiology (biological) rather than a sociological / criminological one.

If a sociologist studied suicide strictly from an epidemiological standpoint, I'd call it just as invalid (unless they were proposing and exploring a strictly biological cause such as a prion infection.)

If it were studied as a behavioral issue, that would make sense..

And that's why I gave a nod to criminologists.

Treating a social / criminological problem strictly as a biological problem looks like science, but it doesn't hold up when the premise for the framework of ascertaining the answers is unsuited to the task at hand.