Everything about Social Sciences totally explained
Social Sciences is the field of
sciences concerned with the studies of the social life of human groups and individuals, including
economics,
geography,
history,
political science,
psychology,
social studies, and
sociology.
In studying subjective, inter-subjective and objective or structural aspects of society, are traditionally referred to as
soft sciences. This is in contrast to
hard sciences, such as the
natural sciences, which may focus exclusively on objective aspects of nature. Nowadays, however, according to proponents of this view, the distinction between the hard sciences and many of the so-called soft sciences is blurred.
Currently, it's a matter of fact that some social science subfields have become very quantitative in methodology. Conversely, the interdisciplinary and cross-disciplinary nature of scientific inquiry into human behavior and social and environmental factors affecting it have made many of the so-called hard sciences interested on some aspects of social science methodology. Examples of boundary blurring include emerging disciplines like social studies of
medicine,
sociobiology,
neuropsychology,
bioeconomics and the
history and
sociology of science. Increasingly, quantitative and qualitative methods are being integrated in the study of human action and its implications and consequences.
History of the social sciences
The word "science" is older than its modern use, which is as a short-form for "natural science". Uses of the word "science", in contexts other than those of th organized body of knowledge which can be taught objectively. The use of the word "science" isn't therefore always an attempt to claim that the subject in question ought to stand on the same footing of inquiry as a natural science.
Ancient Greece
In
ancient philosophy, there was no difference between
mathematics and the study of
history,
poetry or
politics. Only with the development of
mathematical proof did there gradually arise a perceived difference between "scientific" disciplines and others, the "humanities" or the
liberal arts. Thus,
Aristotle studied
planetary motion and poetry with the same methods, and
Plato mixes
geometrical proofs with his demonstration on the state of intrinsic knowledge.
Islamic civilization
Muslim scientists in the
Islamic civilization.
Al-Biruni (973–1048) has been "the first
anthropologist". He wrote detailed comparative studies on the
anthropology of peoples, religions and cultures in the
Middle East,
Mediterranean and
South Asia. Al-Biruni's anthropology of religion was only possible for a scholar deeply immersed in the lore of other nations.
Biruni has also been praised by several scholars for his
Islamic anthropology).
Ibn Khaldun (1332–1406) is regarded as the father of
demography,
historiography, the
philosophy of history,
sociology, and is viewed as one of the forerunners of modern
economics. He is best known for his
Muqaddimah (
Prolegomenon in
Greek).
European enlightenment
During the European
Age of Enlightenment, this unity of science as descriptive remains, for example, in the time of
Thomas Hobbes who argued that
deductive reasoning from
axioms created a scientific framework, and hence his
Leviathan was a scientific description of a political
commonwealth. What would happen within decades of his work was a revolution in what constituted "science", particularly the work of
Isaac Newton in physics. Newton, by revolutionizing what was then called "natural philosophy", changed the basic framework by which individuals understood what was "scientific".
While he was merely the archetype of an accelerating trend, the important distinction is that for Newton, the mathematical flowed from a presumed
reality independent of the observer, and working by its own rules. For philosophers of the same period, mathematical expression of philosophical ideals was taken to be symbolic of natural human relationships as well: the same laws moved physical and spiritual realities. For examples see
Blaise Pascal,
Gottfried Leibniz and
Johannes Kepler, each of whom took mathematical examples as models for human behavior directly. In Pascal's case, the
famous wager; for Leibniz, the invention of
binary computation; and for Kepler, the intervention of
angels to guide the
planets.
In the realm of other disciplines, this created a pressure to express ideas in the form of mathematical relationships. Such relationships, called "Laws" after the usage of the time (see
philosophy of science) became the model which other disciplines would emulate.
Nineteenth century
The term "social science" first appeared in the 1824 book
An Inquiry into the Principles of the Distribution of Wealth Most Conducive to Human Happiness; applied to the Newly Proposed System of Voluntary Equality of Wealth by
William Thompson (1775–1833).
Auguste Comte (1797–1857) argued that ideas pass through three rising stages,
theological,
philosophical and
scientific. He defined the difference as the first being rooted in assumption, the second in
critical thinking, and the third in positive observation. This framework, still rejected by many, encapsulates the thinking which was to push
economic study from being a descriptive to a mathematically based discipline.
Karl Marx was one of the first writers to claim that his methods of research represented a
scientific view of history in this model.
With the late 19th century, attempts to apply equations to statements about
human behavior became increasingly common. Among the first were the "Laws" of
philology, which attempted to map the change over time of sounds in a
language.
It was with the work of
Charles Darwin that the descriptive version of
social theory received another shock.
Biology had, seemingly, resisted mathematical study, and yet the
theory of natural selection and the implied idea of
genetic inheritance - later found to have been enunciated by
Gregor Mendel, seemed to point in the direction of a scientific biology based, like
physics and
chemistry, on mathematical relationships.
Twentieth century
In the first half of the 20th century,
statistics became a free-standing discipline of
applied mathematics. Statistical methods were used confidently, for example in an increasingly statistical view of biology.
The first thinkers to attempt to combine inquiry of the type they saw in Darwin with exploration of human relationships, which,
evolutionary theory implied, would be based on selective forces, were
Freud in Austria and
William James in the
United States. Freud's theory of the functioning of the
mind, and James' work on experimental
psychology would have enormous impact on those that followed. Freud, in particular, created a framework which would appeal not only to those studying psychology, but artists and writers as well.
One of the most persuasive advocates for the view of scientific treatment of philosophy would be
John Dewey (1859–1952). He began, as Marx did, in an attempt to weld
Hegelian idealism and
logic to experimental science, for example in his
Psychology of 1887. However, he abandoned Hegelian constructs. Influenced by both
Charles Sanders Peirce and
William James, he joined the movement in America called
pragmatism. He then formulated his basic doctrine, enunciated in essays such as "The Influence of Darwin on Philosophy" (1910).
This idea, based on his theory of how
organisms respond, states that there are three phases to the process of inquiry:
- Problematic Situation, where the typical response is inadequate.
- Isolation of Data or subject matter.
- Reflective, which is tested empirically.
With the rise of the idea of quantitative measurement in the physical sciences, for example
Lord Rutherford's famous maxim that any knowledge that one can't measure numerically "is a poor sort of knowledge", the stage was set for the conception of the humanities as being precursors to "social science."
This change was not, and is not, without its detractors, both inside of academia and outside. The range of critiques begin from those who believe that the
physical sciences are qualitatively different from social sciences, through those who don't believe in statistical science of any kind, through those who disagree with the
methodology and kinds of conclusion of social science, to those who believe the entire framework of scientificizing these disciplines is solely, or mostly, from a desire for prestige and to alienate the public .
In 1924, prominent social scientists established the
Pi Gamma Mu honor society for the social sciences. Among its key objectives were to promote interdisciplinary cooperation and develop an integrated theory of human personality and organization. Toward these ends, a journal for interdisciplinary scholarship in the various social sciences and lectureship grants were established.
Rise
Theodore Porter argued in
The Rise of Statistical Thinking that the effort to provide a
synthetic social science is a matter of both administration and discovery combined, and that the rise of social science was, therefore, marked by both pragmatic needs as much as by theoretical purity. An example of this is the rise of the concept of
Intelligence Quotient, or IQ. It is unclear precisely what is being measured, but the measurement is useful in that it predicts success in various endeavors.
The rise of
industrialism had created a series of
social,
economic, and
political problems, particularly in managing supply and demand in their political economy, the
management of resources for
military and developmental use, the creation of mass
education systems to train individuals in symbolic reasoning and problems in managing the effects of
industrialization itself. The perceived senselessness of the "Great War" as it was then called, of 1914–18, now called
World War I, based in what were perceived to be "emotional" and "irrational" decisions, provided an immediate impetus for a form of decision making that was more "scientific" and easier to manage. Simply put, to manage the new multi-national enterprises, private and governmental, required more data. More data required a means of reducing it to information upon which to make decisions. Numbers and charts could be interpreted more quickly and moved more efficiently than long texts. Conversely, the interdisciplinary and cross-disciplinary nature of scientific inquiry into human behavior and social and environmental factors affecting it have made many of the so-called hard sciences dependent on social science methodology. Examples of boundary blurring include emerging disciplines like social studies of
medicine,
neuropsychology,
bioeconomics and the history and sociology of science. Increasingly, quantitative and qualitative methods are being integrated in the study of human action and its implications and consequences.
In the 1930s this new model of managing decision making became cemented with the
New Deal in the US, and in Europe with the increasing need to manage industrial production and governmental affairs. Institutions such as
The New School for Social Research,
International Institute of Social History, and departments of "social research" at prestigious universities were meant to fill the growing demand for individuals who could quantify human interactions and produce models for decision making on this basis.
Coupled with this pragmatic need was the belief that the clarity and simplicity of mathematical expression avoided systematic errors of holistic thinking and logic rooted in traditional argument. This trend, part of the larger movement known as
modernism provided the rhetorical edge for the expansion of social sciences.
Present state
There continues to be little movement toward consensus on what methodology might have the power and refinement to connect a proposed "grand theory" with the various midrange theories which, with considerable success, continue to provide usable frameworks for massive, growing data banks. See
consilience.
Studying Social Science
World Universities undertake the study of Social Science as vital within society and most cater many degree's for the Social Science.
The
Bachelor of Social Science BSocSc or B.Soc.Sc is a degree targeted at the social sciences in particular, it's often more flexable and in-depth than other degree's which also include social science subjects. The
Bachelor of Social Science can be studied at The
University of Waikato,
Hamilton,
New Zealand, The
University of Hong Kong, The
University of Manchester,
Manchester,
England and
Lincon University,
Christchurch,
New Zealand.
Social science disciplines
Anthropology
Anthropology is the holistic discipline that deals with the integration of different aspects of the Social Sciences,
Humanities, and
Human Biology. It includes
Archaeology,
Prehistory and
Paleontology,
Physical or
Biological Anthropology,
Anthropological Linguistics,
Social and
Cultural Anthropology,
Ethnology and
Ethnography. It is an area that's offered at most undergraduate institutions. The word anthropos (άνθρωπος) is from the
Greek for "human being" or "person."
Eric Wolf described sociocultural anthropology as "the most scientific of the humanities, and the most humanistic of the sciences."
Economics
Economics is a social science that seeks to analyze and describe the production, distribution, and consumption of wealth. The word "economics" is from the
Greek οἶκος [
oikos], "family, household, estate," and νόμος [
nomos], "custom, law," and hence means "household management" or "management of the state." An
economist is a person using economic concepts and data in the course of employment, or someone who has earned a university
degree in the subject. The classic brief definition of economics, set out by
Lionel Robbins in 1932, is "the science which studies human behavior as a relation between scarce means having alternative uses." Without scarcity and alternative uses, there's no
economic problem. Briefer yet is "the study of how people seek to satisfy needs and wants" and "the study of the financial aspects of human behaviour."
Economics has two broad branches:
microeconomics, where the unit of analysis is the individual agent, such as a household, firm and
macroeconomics, where the unit of analysis is an economy as a whole. Another division of the subject distinguishes
positive economics, which seeks to predict and explain economic phenomena, from
normative economics, which orders choices and actions by some criterion; such orderings necessarily involve
subjective value judgments. Since the early part of the 20th century, economics has focused largely on measurable quantities, employing both theoretical models and empirical analysis. Quantitative models, however, can be traced as far back as the
physiocratic school. Economic reasoning has been increasingly applied in recent decades to social situations where there's no monetary consideration, such as
politics,
law,
psychology,
history,
religion,
marriage and family life, and other social interactions.
This paradigm crucially assumes (1) that resources are
scarce because they're not sufficient to satisfy all wants, and (2) that "economic value" is willingness to pay as revealed for instance by market (arms' length) transactions. Rival schools of thought, such as
heterodox economics,
institutional economics,
Marxist economics,
socialism,
green economics, and
economic sociology, make other grounding assumptions, such as that economics primarily deals with the exchange of value, and that labor (human effort) is the source of all value.
Education
Education
encompasses teaching and
learning specific
skills, and also something less tangible but more profound: the imparting of
knowledge, positive
judgement and well-developed
wisdom. Education has as one of its fundamental aspects the imparting of
culture from generation to generation (see
socialization). Education means 'to draw out', facilitating realisation of self-potential and latent talents of an individual. It is an application of
pedagogy, a body of theoretical and applied research relating to teaching and learning and draws on many disciplines such as
psychology,
philosophy,
computer science,
linguistics,
neuroscience,
sociology and
anthropology.
The education of an individual human begins at birth and continues throughout life. (Some believe that education begins even before birth, as evidenced by some parents' playing music or reading to the baby in the womb in the hope it'll influence the child's development.) For some, the struggles and triumphs of daily
life provide far more instruction than does formal
schooling (thus
Mark Twain's admonition to "never let school interfere with your education").
Family members may have a profound educational effect — often more profound than they realize — though family teaching may function very informally.
Geography
Geography as a discipline can be split broadly into two main sub fields:
human geography and
physical geography. The former focuses largely on the built environment and how space is created, viewed and managed by humans as well as the influence humans have on the space they occupy. The latter examines the natural environment and how the
climate,
vegetation & life,
soil,
water and
landforms are produced and interact. As a result of the two subfields using different approaches a third field has emerged, which is
environmental geography. Environmental geography combines physical and human geography and looks at the interactions between the environment and humans.
Geographers attempt to understand the
earth in terms of physical and spatial relationships. The first geographers focused on the science of
mapmaking and finding ways to precisely
project the surface of the earth. In this sense, geography bridges some gaps between the natural sciences and social sciences.
Historical geography is often taught in a college in a unified Department of Geography.
Modern geography is an all-encompassing discipline that seeks to understand how the world has changed in terms of human settlement and natural patterns. The fields of
Urban Planning,
Regional Science, and
Planetology are closely related to geography. Practicioners of geography use many technologies and methods to collect data such as
remote sensing,
aerial photography,
statistics, and
global positioning systems (GPS).
The field of geography is generally split into two distinct branches: physical and human.
Physical geography examines phenomena related to
climate,
oceans,
soils, and the
measurement of earth.
Human geography focuses on fields as diverse as
Cultural geography,
transportation,
health,
military operations, and
cities. Other
branches of geography include
Social geography,
regional geography,
geomatics, and
environmental geography.
History
History is the continuous, systematic
narrative and
research of past events as relating to the human species; as well as the study of all events in
time, in relation to humanity. There is much debate over history's classification of academe, for instance in the
United States the
National Endowment for the Humanities includes history in its definition of a Humanities (as it does for applied Linguistics). However the
National Research Council classifies History as a Social science. History can be seen as the sum total of many things taken together and the spectrum of events occurring in action following in order leading from the past to the present and into the future. The
historical method comprises the techniques and guidelines by which historians use
primary sources and other evidence to research and then to
write history.
Law
Law in common parlance, means a rule which (unlike a rule of ethics) is capable of enforcement through institutions. The study of law crosses the boundaries between the social sciences and humanities, depending on one's view of research into its objectives and effects. Law isn't always enforceable, especially in the international relations context. It has been defined as a "system of rules", as an "interpretive concept" to achieve justice, as an "authority" to mediate people's interests, and even as "the command of a sovereign, backed by the threat of a sanction". However one likes to think of law, it's a completely central social institution. Legal policy incorporates the practical manifestation of thinking from almost every social sciences and humanity. Laws are politics, because politicians create them. Law is philosophy, because moral and ethical persuasions shape their ideas. Law tells many of history's stories, because statutes, case law and codifications build up over time. And law is economics, because any rule about
contract,
tort,
property law,
labour law,
company law and many more can have long lasting effects on the distribution of wealth. The noun
law derives from the late
Old English lagu, meaning something laid down or fixed and the adjective
legal comes from the Latin word
lex.
Linguistics
Linguistics is a discipline that investigates the cognitive and social aspects of human language. The field is traditionally divided into areas that focus on particular aspects of the linguistic signal, such as
syntax (the study of the rules that govern the structure of sentences),
semantics (the study of meaning),
phonetics (the study of speech sounds) and
phonology (the study of the abstract sound system of a particular language); however, work in areas like
evolutionary linguistics (the study of the origins and evolution of language) and
psycholinguistics (the study of psychological factors in human language) cut across these divisions.
The overwhelming majority of modern research in linguistics takes a predominantly perspective (focusing on language at a particular point in time), and a great deal of it—partly owing to the influence of
Noam Chomsky—aims at formulating theories of the cognitive processing of language. However, language doesn't exist in a vacuum, or only in the brain, and approaches like contact linguistics,
creole studies,
discourse analysis, social interactional linguistics, and
sociolinguistics explore language in its social context. Sociolinguistics often makes use of traditional quantitative analysis and
statistics in investigating the frequency of features, while some disciplines, like contact linguistics, focus on qualitative analysis. While certain areas of linguistics can thus be understood as clearly falling within the social sciences, other areas, like
acoustic phonetics and
neurolinguistics, draw on the natural sciences. Linguistics draws only secondarily on the humanities, which played a rather greater role in linguistic inquiry in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
Ferdinand Saussure is considered the father of modern linguistics.
Political science
Political science is an
academic and
research discipline that deals with the theory and practice of
politics and the description and analysis of
political systems and political behavior. Fields and subfields of political science include
political theory and philosophy,
civics and
comparative politics, theory of
direct democracy, apolitical governance, participatory direct democracy, national systems, cross-national political analysis, political development,
international relations,
foreign policy,
international law, politics,
public administration, administrative behavior, public law, judicial behavior, and
public policy. Political science also studies
power in international relations and the theory of
Great powers and
Superpowers.
Political science is methodologically diverse. Approaches to the discipline include classical political philosophy,
interpretivism,
structuralism, and
behavioralism,
realism, pluralism, and
institutionalism. Political science, as one of the
social sciences, uses methods and techniques that relate to the kinds of inquiries sought: primary sources such as historical documents and official records, secondary sources such as scholarly journal articles,
survey research,
statistical analysis,
case studies, and model building.
Herbert Baxter Adams is credited with coining the phrase "political science" while teaching history at
Johns Hopkins University.
Psychology
Psychology is an
academic and
applied field involving the study of behavior and mental processes. Psychology also refers to the application of such
knowledge to various spheres of human activity, including problems of individuals'
daily lives and the treatment of
mental illness.
Psychology differs from
anthropology,
economics,
political science, and
sociology in seeking to capture explanatory generalizations about the
mental function and overt
behaviour of individuals, while the other disciplines rely more heavily on field studies and historical methods for extracting descriptive generalizations. In practice, however, there's quite a lot of cross-fertilization that takes place among the various fields. Psychology differs from
biology and
neuroscience in that it's primarily concerned with the interaction of mental processes and behavior, and of the overall processes of a system, and not simply the biological or neural processes themselves, though the subfield of
neuropsychology combines the study of the actual neural processes with the study of the mental effects they've subjectively produced.
Many people associate Psychology with Clinical Psychology which focuses on assessment and treatment of problems in living and psychopathology. In reality, Psychology has myriad specialties including: Social Psychology, Developmental Psychology, Cognitive Psychology, Industrial-Organizational Psychology,
Mathematical psychology, Neuropsychology, and Quantitative Analysis of Behaviour to name only a few. The word
psychology comes from the
ancient Greek ψυχή,
psyche ("soul", "mind") and
logy, study).
Psychology is a very broad science that's rarely tackled as a whole, major block. Although some subfields encompass a natural science base and a social science application, others can be clearly distinguished as having little to do with the social sciences or having a lot to do with the social sciences. For example, biological psychology is considered a natural science with a social scientific application (as is clinical
medicine), social and occupational psychology are, generally speaking, purely social sciences, whereas neuropsychology is a natural science that lacks application out of the scientific tradition entirely. In British universities, emphasis on what tenet of psychology a student has studied and/or concentrated is communicated through the degree conferred: B.Psy. indicates a balance between natural and social sciences, B.Sc. indicates a strong (or entire) scientific concentration, whereas a B.A. underlines a majority of social science credits.
Social Work
Social Work is concerned with social problems, their causes, their solutions and their human impacts. Social workers work with individuals, families, groups, organizations and communities. Social Work is the profession committed to the pursuit of social justice, to the enhancement of the quality of life, and to the development of the full potential of each individual, group and community in society. Social refers to human society or its organization. stem "soci-" which is from the Latin word socius, meaning member, friend, or ally, thus referring to people in general. It is a social science involving the application of social theory and research methods to the study and improve the
lives of
people,
groups, and
societies. Social work is unique in that it seeks to simultaneously navigate across and within micro, mezzo, and macro systems -in order to sufficiently address and resolve social issues at every level. Social work incorporates and utilizes all of the social sciences as a means to improve the human condition.
Social work bases its methodology on a systematic body of evidence-based knowledge derived from research and practice evaluation, including local and indigenous knowledge specific to its context. It recognizes the complexity of interactions between human beings and their environment, and the capacity of people both to be affected by and to alter the multiple influences upon them including bio-psychosocial factors. The social work profession draws on theories of human development and behaviour and social systems to analyse complex situations and to facilitate individual, organizational, social and cultural changes. (International Federation of Social Workers).
In social work research there's a great deal of traditional research, both qualitative and quantitative being carried out, primarily by university-based researchers, but also in different fields, by researchers based in institutes, foundations, or social service agencies. Meanwhile, the majority of social work practitioners continue to look elsewhere for knowledge. This is a state of affairs that has persisted since the outset of the profession in the first decade of the twentieth century. One reason for the practice-research gap is that practitioners deal with situations that are unique and idiosyncratic, while research deals with regularities and aggregates. The translation between the two is often imperfect. A hopeful development for bridging this gap is the compilation in many practice fields of collections of "best practices," largely taken from research findings, but also distilled from the experience of respected practitioners.
One of the most prominent organizations promoting social work research science is The Society for Social Work and Research (http://www.sswr.org/) which is a non-profit professional society incorporated in the State of New York in 1993. The Society is devoted to the involvement of social workers, other social work faculty, and social work students in research and to promotion of human welfare through research and research applications.
Sociology
Sociology is the study of society and human social action. It generally concerns itself with the
social rules and
processes that bind and separate people not only as
individuals, but as members of
associations,
groups,
communities and
institutions, and includes the examination of the organization and development of human social life. The sociological field of interest ranges from the analysis of short
contacts between anonymous individuals on the street to the study of
global social processes. Most sociologists work in one or more
subfields.
The meaning of the word comes from the suffix "-ology" which means "study of," derived from Greek, and the stem "soci-" which is from the Latin word socius, meaning member, friend, or ally, thus referring to people in general. It is a social science involving the application of social theory and research methods to the study of the
social lives of
people,
groups, and
societies, sometimes defined as the study of
social interactions. It is a relatively new
academic discipline which evolved in the early 19th century.
Because sociology is such a broad discipline, it can be difficult to define, even for professional sociologists. One useful way to describe the discipline is as a cluster of sub-fields that examine different dimensions of society. For example,
social stratification studies inequality and class structure;
demography studies changes in a population size or type;
criminology examines criminal behavior and deviance;
political sociology studies government and laws; and the sociology of race and
sociology of gender examine society's racial and gender cleavages.
Sociological methods, theories, and concepts may inspire sociologists to explore the origins of
commonly accepted conventions. Sociology offers insights about the social world that extend beyond explanations that rely on individual quirks and personalities. Sociologist may find general social patterns in studying the behaviour of particular individuals and groups. This specific approach to social reality is sometimes called the
sociological perspective.
Sociologists use a diversity of research methods, including
case studies,
historical research,
interviewing,
participant observation,
social network analysis,
survey research,
statistical analysis, and model building, among other approaches. Since the late 1970s, many sociologists have tried to make the discipline useful for non-academic purposes. The results of sociological research aid educators, lawmakers, administrators, developers, and others interested in resolving social problems and formulating
public policy, through subdisciplinary areas such as
evaluation research, methodological
assessment, and
public sociology.
New sociological sub-fields continue to appear - such as
community studies,
computational sociology,
network analysis,
actor-network theory and a growing list, many of which are
cross-disciplinary in nature.
Further fields
Communication studies
Development studies
Information science
Sociobiology
Social theory and research methods
The social sciences share many social theory perspectives and research methods. Theory perspectives include various types of critical theory, dialectical materialism, feminist theory, phronetic social science, assorted branches of Marxist theory such as revolutionary theory and class theory, post-colonial theory, postmodernism as well as the related intellectual criticalism and scientific criticalism, rational choice theory, rational criticalism, social constructionism, structuralism, and structural functionalism. Research methods shared include a wide variety of quantitative and qualitative methods.
The graphism thesis maintains that social sciences don't use graphs as much as natural sciences.
Criticism
The social sciences are sometimes criticized as being less scientific than the natural sciences, in that they're seen as being less rigorous or empirical in their methods. This claim has been made in the so-called Science Wars and is most commonly made when comparing social sciences to fields such as physics, chemistry or biology in which corroboration of the hypothesis is far more incisive with regard to data observed from specifically designed experiments. Social sciences can thus be deemed to be largely observational, in that explanations for cause-effect relationships are largely subjective. A limited degree of freedom is available in designing the factor setting for a particular observational study. Social scientists however, argue against such claims by pointing to the use of a rich variety of scientific processes, mathematical proofs, and other methods in their professional literature. Flyvbjerg (2001) has argued that the discussion of whether natural science is more scientific than social science is futile; social science is best practiced as phronesis, whereas natural science is best practiced as episteme, in the classical Greek meaning of the terms, and both have important if different roles to play in the production of knowledge in society.
It has been argued that the social world is much too complex to be studied as one would study static molecules. The actions or reactions of a molecule or chemical substance are always the same when placed in certain situations. Humans, on the other hand, are much too complex for these traditional scientific methodologies. Humans and society don't have certain rules that always have the same outcome and they can't guarantee to react the same way to certain situations.
A third criticism is that social sciences tend to be compromised more frequently by politics, since results from social science may threaten certain centers of power in a society, particularly ones which fund the research institutions. Further, complexity exacerbates the problems, since observed social data may be the result of factors which are hard to evaluate in isolation.
Not all institutions recognize some fields listed above as social sciences or as being only social scientific. Some disciplines have characteristics of both the humanities, social and natural sciences: for example some subfields of anthropology, such as biological anthropology, are closely related to the natural sciences whereas archaeology and linguistics are social sciences, while cultural anthropology is very much linked with the humanities. Note that social science methodologies are being incorporated into so-called hard science fields like medicine, where a three-legged stool to the understanding of physical well-being is now emphasized in the medical curriculum: biological, socio-psychological, and environmental.
Notes and references
Book sources
The beginnings of the social sciences in the 18th century are reflected in the grand encyclopedia of Diderot, with articles from Rousseau and other pioneers. The growth of the social sciences is also reflected in its specialised encyclopedias. The older editions are therefore of strong historical interest while the newest reflects current discussions and methodologies.
Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences (1934)
International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences (1968), ed., David L. Sills and Robert K. Merton.
International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences (2001), ed., Neil J. Smelser and Paul B. Baltes, Amsterdam: Elsevier.Further Information
Get more info on 'Social Sciences'.
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