
The founder of sociology and of positivism - a theory that knowledge is derived from experience and excludes a priori or metaphysical speculations - dubbed it so as it would be able to embrace and hold together the rest of the sciences, just like a keystone. You know the mother of dragons? Well, sociology is the “queen of all sciences,” according to French philosopher Auguste Comte.

Social life regulates the behaviour of humans because we largely depend on social institutions and organisations to inform our decisions and actions - something sociologists are constantly observing and studying. This is through observing the constituent parts of societies like population, gender, racial or age groups. Sociologists study human interactions, and the dynamics that preserve and change them. Sociology is the study of human interaction and dynamics. That 35,000th selfie you just took? That would shock a Papua New Guinean in 1969, when the late Edmund Carpenter, groundbreaking archaeologist and anthropologist, journeyed to the country in Oceania as he “wanted to observe, for example, what happens when a person - for the first time - sees himself in a mirror, in a photograph, on films, hears his voice sees his name.” Sociology That Asian spice can be traced to a market in the Levant 3,700 years ago. The “new superfood” turmeric turning up in lattes, ice cream and smoothies all over Europe? Turns out it isn’t that new after all. They uncover fascinating discoveries, from the most inane to the most fantastical. They consider the past, and through archaeology, explore how human groups lived thousands of years ago, including what makes up our bodies and genes. It’s basically studying what makes us human, using a broad approach to process several different aspects of the human experience. It also looks at how language has an effect on our biological development. Here are the seven main branches of the social sciences: AnthropologyĪnthropology as a part of the social sciences, studies the past and present of humans and societies, looking at patterns of behaviour and cultural meanings. This is not lost on some of the biggest tech companies today, which are increasingly recruiting grads with the know-how around issues like community, identity, political polarisation and “fake news.”

We understand the systems and institutions that flood our news feed every day - why does ICE have so much power? How did the US electoral college come about? Is our Earth really warming up to the point of no return? These are issues that affect people’s lives every day - expertise in this is crucial. It helps us understand the who, what, when, where and most importantly “why?” of our existence. There are many reasons to study the social sciences. To illustrate this: the former measures a litre of liquid nitrogen, the latter analyses the root causes of bullying by speaking to many perpetrators.

The social sciences collect experiential data, collected via interviews, surveys and more.

In natural sciences like biology, chemistry, and physics, data is measured via experiments. The social sciences are different from the natural sciences because it examines and focuses on human behaviour and the community rather than the physical world. It all began with the ancient Greeks and their rationalist inquiries into human nature, the state, and morality. The social sciences deal with human behaviour in its social and cultural aspects.
