Social science

Social science is a major branch of science focused on human societies. It studies how people live together and interact within those groups.

While it once referred only to sociology, it now includes many different academic disciplines. These fields include anthropology, economics, geography, history, and linguistics. It also covers psychology, political science, and communication studies. By studying these areas, researchers aim to understand the complex rules of human behavior.

Researchers use different methods to study these social patterns. Many scientists follow a path called positivism. They use methods similar to the natural sciences to find facts. They often use math and experiments to create theories that can be tested. Other researchers are called interpretivists or speculative social scientists. They use social critique and symbolic interpretation instead of strict experiments. Today, many researchers are eclectic. They combine quantitative methods, which use numbers, with qualitative methods, which use descriptions.

The history of this field began during the Age of Enlightenment after 1651. This era changed how people understood scientific truth. The social sciences grew from the moral philosophy of that time. They were also influenced by the Industrial Revolution and the French Revolution. In 1767, a person named Mirabeau coined the term "social science" in French. Later, Auguste Comte used the term "social physics" to describe the field. He believed social science should work much like the natural sciences.

As the field grew, it split into several distinct paths of development. One path focused on large statistical surveys across Europe and the United States. A second path was led by Émile Durkheim, who studied what he called "social facts." A third path involved understanding social phenomena through different viewpoints, championed by Max Weber. A fourth path focused on economics to turn it into a hard science. Finally, a fifth path looked at the link between social knowledge and social values.

By the start of the 20th century, the methods of social science changed again. Many researchers began using mathematics to build theoretical structures. This made the subfields very quantitative, meaning they relied heavily on numbers. Statistics became a specialized branch of applied mathematics during the first half of the 20th century. This allowed researchers to use statistical methods with great confidence. Today, disciplines are becoming more interdisciplinary. This means they work together across different fields to study human action.

One major branch of this field is anthropology, the study of humanity. The name comes from the Greek word "anthropos," meaning human being.

Anthropologists try to provide a holistic account of human nature. They look at biological, linguistic, historic, and cultural aspects all at once. In the United States, anthropology is divided into four main sub-fields. These are archaeology, biological anthropology, linguistic anthropology, and cultural anthropology. This broad approach helps explain how different cultures function.

Another important area is communication studies, which examines how humans share meaning. This discipline looks at everything from face-to-face talks to mass media like television. It studies how messages are interpreted through political and economic contexts. Communication studies often overlaps with other fields like sociology and psychology. It also connects to the humanities through the study of rhetoric and persuasion. Together, these various branches help us map the complex world of human connection.