This controversy follows the classically identified course of social conflict.  Attack is followed by counter-attack, with progressive alienation between the parties to the conflict.  In due course, since the conflict is public, it becomes a status-battle more than a search for truth.  Attitudes become polarized, and then each group of sociologists begins to respond largely to stereotyped versions of what the other is saying.  Theorists of the middle range are stereotyped as mere nose-counters or mere fact-finders or as merely descriptive sociographers.  And theorists aiming at general theory are stereotyped as inveterately speculative, entirely committed to doctrines that are so formulated that they cannot be tested (1968, pp. 53-54).