<P> The origin of the survey can be traced back at least early as the Domesday Book in 1086, while some scholars pinpoint the origin of demography to 1663 with the publication of John Graunt's Natural and Political Observations upon the Bills of Mortality . Social research began most intentionally, however, with the positivist philosophy of science in the early 19th century . </P> <P> Statistical sociological research, and indeed the formal academic discipline of sociology, began with the work of Émile Durkheim (1858--1917). While Durkheim rejected much of the detail of Comte's philosophy, he retained and refined its method, maintaining that the social sciences are a logical continuation of the natural ones into the realm of human activity, and insisting that they may retain the same objectivity, rationalism, and approach to causality . Durkheim set up the first European department of sociology at the University of Bordeaux in 1895, publishing his Rules of the Sociological Method (1895). In this text he argued: "(o) ur main goal is to extend scientific rationalism to human conduct...What has been called our positivism is but a consequence of this rationalism ." </P> <P> Durkheim's seminal monograph, Suicide (1897), a case study of suicide rates among Catholic and Protestant populations, distinguished sociological analysis from psychology or philosophy . By carefully examining suicide statistics in different police districts, he attempted to demonstrate that Catholic communities have a lower suicide rate than that of Protestants, something he attributed to social (as opposed to individual or psychological) causes . He developed the notion of objective suis generis "social facts" to delineate a unique empirical object for the science of sociology to study . Through such studies he posited that sociology would be able to determine whether any given society is' healthy' or' pathological', and seek social reform to negate organic breakdown or "social anomie". For Durkheim, sociology could be described as the "science of institutions, their genesis and their functioning". </P> <P> In the mid-20th century there was a general--but not universal--trend for U.S. American sociology to be more scientific in nature, due to the prominence at that time of action theory and other system - theoretical approaches . Robert K. Merton released his Social Theory and Social Structure (1949). By the turn of the 1960s, sociological research was increasingly employed as a tool by governments and businesses worldwide . Sociologists developed new types of quantitative and qualitative research methods . Paul Lazarsfeld founded Columbia University's Bureau of Applied Social Research, where he exerted a tremendous influence over the techniques and the organization of social research . His many contributions to sociological method have earned him the title of the "founder of modern empirical sociology". Lazarsfeld made great strides in statistical survey analysis, panel methods, latent structure analysis, and contextual analysis . Many of his ideas have been so influential as to now be considered self - evident . </P>

Who is the author of book titled methods in social research