rather than attempting to explain the entire social world. He saw both the middle-range theory approach and middle-range theories themselves as temporary: when they matured, as natural sciences already had, the body of middle-range theories would become a system of universal laws; but, until that time, social sciences should avoid trying to create a universal theory. Merton's original foil in the construction was Talcott Parsons, whose action theory C. Wright Mills later classified as a "grand theory". (Parsons vehemently rejected this categorization.) Middle-range theories are normally constructed by applying theory-building techniques to empirical research, which produce generic propositions about the social world, which in turn can also be empirically tested. Examples of middle-range theories are theories of reference groups, social mobility, normalization processes, role conflict and the formation of social norms. The middle-range approach has played a role in turning sociology into an increasingly empirically oriented discipline. This was also important in post-war thought. In the post-war period, middle-range theory became the dominant approach to theory construction in all variable-based social sciences. Middle-range theory has also been applied to the archaeological realm by Lewis R. Binford, and to financial theory by Robert C. Merton, Robert K. Merton's son. In the recent decades, the analytical sociology programme has emerged as an attempt synthesizing middle-range theories into a more coherent abstract framework (as Merton had hoped would eventually happen). Peter Hedström at Oxford is the scholar most associated with this approach, while Peter Bearman is its most prominent American advocate. Quotes "...what might be called theories of the middle range: theories intermediate to the minor working hypotheses evolved in abundance during the day-by-day routine of research, and the all-inclusive speculations comprising a master conceptual scheme." — Robert K. Merton, Social Theory and Social Structure "Our major task today is to develop special theories applicable to limited conceptual ranges – theories, for example, of deviant behavior, the unanticipated consequences of purposive action, social perception, reference groups, social control, the interdependence of social institutions – rather than to seek the total conceptual structure that is adequate to derive these and other theories of the middle range." — Robert K. Merton References Footnotes Bibliography Robert K. Merton Sociological theories