Social science

A social science, uses mathematics and some parts of the scientific method to probe matters of human affairs. As distinct from a pure science, the focus is not on the natural world, but on humanity.

Social sciences include political science, which uses game theory to evaluate the decisionmaking processes of world leaders, and anthropology, which combines archeology (a pure science) and history to investigate how other societies live. Other disciplines which are social sciences include: economics, geography, psychology, social studies, and sociology.

In an article entitled How reliable are the social sciences?, Cary Cutting wrote in the New York Times:

“

While the physical sciences produce many detailed and precise predictions, the social sciences do not. The reason is that such predictions almost always require randomized controlled experiments, which are seldom possible when people are involved. For one thing, we are too complex: our behavior depends on an enormous number of tightly interconnected variables that are extraordinarily difficult to distinguish and study separately. Also, moral considerations forbid manipulating humans the way we do inanimate objects. As a result, most social science research falls far short of the natural sciences’ standard of controlled experiments.

”