Jonathan H. Turner

Jonathan H. Turner is 38th University Professor of the University of California and Distinguished Professor of the Graduate Division at University of California, Riverside, and Research Professor at University of California, Santa Barbara. He received his B.A in 1965 from UCSB and his M.A in 1966 and Ph.D. in 1968 from Cornell University. He is primarily a sociological theorist, but has been committed in recent decades to brining biological analysis into sociology, and sociology to the general public. He is the author of 44 books and several hundred research articles. His most recent book is Inter-Societal Systems: Toward a More General Theory (2023). More information about Dr. Turner and his credentials can be found be found here.

About this site

For well over 50 years now, I have pushed for a true science of society—that is, for “social physics”—and watched a discipline move away from this goal into an increasingly politicized discipline that often is anti-science. I probably agree with the politics of most sociologists and, for sure, I have supported almost all the social movements that they embrace, but my view is that these are matters for each of us as citizens, indeed as decent human beings, not as sociologists. Our goal should be the understand the dynamics of the social universe so that these understandings can be used to make a better social world. Without hard science, activism is driven by emotions, bias, politics, utopian ideologies, and many other states of being that get in the way of doing good science. One does not need a PhD in sociology or any discipline to be an activist. Activism biases actions but, even when well intended, activism is the enemy of more dispassionate insight into how the social universe operates. We have plenty of activists in and outside of sociology, but we do not have enough scientists to develop the knowledge needed to make the world a better place to live.

These concerns are my motivation to develop a website and blog. I will post materials that fit my vision of what sociology should and can be, hoping that some might find them interesting and useful. I am not sure many will join me in my quest, but the internet makes posts on the internet somewhat immortal, floating in cyberspace. And so, even it I have few, or even no, followers today, perhaps long after my time, those who want to take a different course than activism, will find this small ship of a blog drifting through cyberspace. For I know this much: without a social physics, the changes that many seek (as do I) will not come about through pure politics and passion.