In existographies, Alan Meyer Sica (1949-) (CR:3) is an American sociologist noted, in sociological thermodynamics, for his 2012 article “Classical Sociological Theory”, wherein he discusses Russian-born American sociologist Pitirim Sorokin's famous 1928 "mechanistic school" chapter, to his Contemporary Sociological Theories, in its own context, and in relation to modern 21st century human thermodynamics. [1] Sica also has written and edited a number of books on German sociologist Max Weber.

Overview
Sica, in his article, comments on the 17th century social mechanics views of: Rene Descartes, Benedict Spinoza, Gottfried Leibniz, Hugo Grotius, and Nicolas Malebranche, and the 18th century social mechanics views of: George Berkeley, and the 19th century views of Henry Carey and Herbert Spencer. On Carey, in whom social mechanics, as Sica puts, "blossomed", we are given the following aggregate quote of Carey's discerning views:

“The laws which govern matter in all its forms, whether that of coal, clay, ion, pebble stones, trees, oxen, horses, or men, are the same; man is the molecule of society; and social interaction operates under the great law of molecular gravitation.”

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Social mechanics | Childish?
Sica, of note, points out how, in the end, Sorokin calls these "childish mechanical analogies"—as contrasted with Vilfredo Pareto, who also used human molecular theory, but whom Sorokin classifies as more “serious” a thinker—a point of view that, to note, is near verbatim to when in 1810 German poet and writer Christoph Wieland commented on German polymath Johann Goethe's 1809 physical chemistry based novella Elective Affinities, in a letter to German philologist and archeologist Karl Böttiger, which he suggested should be "burned" after it is read, that: “to all rational readers, the use of the chemical theory is nonsense and childish fooling around”; supposedly, objected owing to the "radicalness of its Christianity" (Jul 16); in another letter, whose addressee, a woman, is unknown, he stated: "I confess to you, my friend, that I have read this truly terrifying work not with out feeling or concern" (see: Elective Affinities (enemies)).

While Sorokin, to his credit, does not seem to specifically classify Carey's social mechanics views, and the other so-called "primitive social mechanics" thinkers, as "terrifying" we do note that Sorokin's "The Mechanistic School" chapter has been cogently described as an "attack" on the mechanistic school of sociology, and similar in theme Austrian sociologist Werner Stark's 1962 chapters on the mechanistic school have likewise been described, by American sociologist Leon Warshay (1993), as an "angry" one: [2]

“The work of Henry Carey (which is discussed in Chapters 10 and 11) and that of S.C. Haret is characterized as extreme mechanicism. Both apply physical principles to society (e.g. force, attraction, motion, constrains, space, equilibrium, energy, and electricity) and both see individuals in mechanistic-atomistic terms (e.g. as particles and or molecules) as inert elements caused from without. Stark criticizes extreme mechanicism for its inability to deal with social fact (pg. 163) and as inclined to be a- or anti-historical (pg. 159). Some ‘empiricism’ is evident here in Stark’s criticisms of the various types of mechanicism he posits. His argument is an angry one: that Carey, Pareto, and Lundberg have all ‘imported’ models from elsewhere (e.g. from physics and astronomy), and have ‘imposed’ them on social phenomena (which Stark knows to have an idealistic character) under a ‘unity of nature’ positivist ideal, which is really a sociology unified under physics (pg. 155).”

Here, then, in sum, see the intense emotional words "anger" and "terror" being associated with a theory (chemistry and physics used to explain human behavior) that is supposedly "childish", which reverberates right up to the present time with the term "danger" being thrown about in the 2006 human chemical thermodynamics themed Rossini debate on basically the exact same topic? To continue, Sica comments on "childish" labeling as follows:

“There were other, competing approaches dealing with the problem of human action in somewhat less ‘childish’ ways, less tied to the belief that Homo sapiens could be understood by means of mechanical or molecular imagery.”

Sica gives the examples of the social physics theories of Marquis de Condorcet, Henri Saint-Simon, and Adolphe Quetelet as examples of supposedly less childish attempts.


Cover to the 2012 collaborative The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Sociology, wherein Sica's chapter five “Classical Sociological Theory”, discusses Pitirim Sorokin's famous 1928 "mechanistic school" and modern 21st century human thermodynamics. [1]

Cover to the 2012 collaborative The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Sociology, wherein Sica's chapter five “Classical Sociological Theory”, discusses Pitirim Sorokin's famous 1928 "mechanistic school" and modern 21st century human thermodynamics. [1]

Molecular view
One of the inherent problems here, in regards to classifying the study of humans from the molecular point of view as "childish", is that, as of 2002, with the publication of American limnologists James Elser and Robert Sterner’s Ecological Stoichiometry, and, independently, American electrochemical engineer Libb Thims’ 2007 Human Chemistry, humans are now scientifically defined as 26-element surface-attached molecules or “human molecules” with a measurable human molecular formula. While this new “molecular” view of humans, which Sica criticizes as "naive", citing C.G. Darwin (1952) as one example, is slowly beginning to find its way in the hard science engineering community, e.g. Advanced Thermodynamics Engineering (2011), the adoption of this view in modern sociology is slow in coming, despite the fact that its own founders, such as Henry Carey (1852), Albion Small (1899), founder of the University of Chicago Sociology Department, and Robert Nisbet (1970), founder of the University of California, Berkeley Sociology Department, have been proclaiming these views for over a century. It is a puzzling situation, to say the least? One points of unspoken tension is that the debated is invariably ingrained with deep-seated religious-biased belief system tensions, which, as Wieland states is one of the reasons for use of the term “childish”, because as he so frankly put it 200-years ago the molecular view is not in alignment with many of the fundamental tenets of Christianity, such as free will, choice to do right or wrong, Bible-based morality vs. moral symbol based morality, and religiously-defined ideas on good and evil as opposed to thermodynamically-defined measurable models of natural and unnatural, and so on.

Education
Sica completed his BA in 1971 at the University of Richmond, his MA in 1974 with a thesis on “A Theory of Future Social Change” at the College of William and Mary, and his PhD in 1978 at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Currently, Sica is a sociology professor at Penn State University.

References
1. (a) Sica, Alan. (2012). “Classical Sociological Theory”, in: The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Sociology (editor: George Ritzer) (§5, pgs. 82-97; Sorokin + “mechanistic school”, pgs. 85-86; humanothermodynamics, pgs. 87-88). John Wiley & Sons.
(b) Sorokin, Pitirim. (1928). “The Mechanistic School” (pdf), in: Contemporary Sociological Theories (§1, pgs. 1-62). Harper & Brothers.
(c) Sorokin, Pitirim. (1928). Contemporary Sociological Theories (§1: The Mechanistic School, pgs, 4-62; thermodynamics, pgs. 25-27; human molecules, pg. 46-47). Harper & Brothers.
2. Warshay, Leon H. (1993). “The Social Theory of a Humane Organicist: On Werner Stark as Intellectual Detective and Moralist”, in: In Search of Community: Essays in Memory of Werner Stark (1909-1985) (pgs. 45-55). Fordham.

External links
● Alan Sica (faculty) – Department of Sociology & Crime, Law and Justice, Penn State.
● Sica, Alan (1949-) – WorldCat Identities.