Social science. Scholars generally identify three categories of knowledge: (1) the natural sciences and mathematics, (2) the humanities, and (3) the social sciences. The natural sciences concern the systematic understanding of the physical world. The humanities interpret the meaning of life rather than describe the physical world or society. The social sciences focus on understanding patterns of human behavior.
The social sciences include anthropology, economics, criminology, demography, political science, sociology, social psychology, and certain subfields of geography and history. Some aspects of the fields of biology, education, law, medicine, and public health may also fit within the social sciences when the topics of inquiry are related to patterns of human behavior.
Relationship to natural sciences.
Scholars in the social sciences have developed certain ways of studying patterns of human behavior. Quantitative methods within the social sciences most often use systematic survey data to describe and explain the group-related behavior of human beings within and across societies. Observations of the regularity of human behavior lead scholars in the social sciences to form hypotheses (propositions) and then to test the validity of these hypotheses using quantitative data and statistical methods. The social sciences have benefited from the rapid development in the late 1900’s and early 2000’s of survey techniques, data storage capacity, computing technology, and statistical methods that allow for the complex analysis of social scientific data. Quantitative methods of social science research are much closer in their orientation to the natural sciences than to the humanities.
Relationship to humanities.
Linkage between the social sciences and the humanities is also important. Social scientists often employ such methods as in-depth interviews or participant observation to better understand group-related human behavior. An anthropologist may travel to a distant land and even live in a village for weeks, months, or years to better understand group-related behavior. Other social scientists might examine historical and government documents from a society to better understand how patterns of behavior developed in that place. The systematic collection and analysis of in-depth interview data, participation observation data, and data from historical documents places certain social scientists closer in orientation to scholars in the humanities, who may also use such methods in their work.
