Page 40 - DLIS407_INFORMATION AND LITERATURE SURVEY IN SOCIAL SCIENCES

Unit 5: Social Science Disciplines: Developments and Problems

of medicine, sociobiology, neuropsychology, bio-economics and the history and sociology of science. Notes
Increasingy, quantitative research and qualitative methods are being integrated in the study of human
action and its implications and consequences. In the first half of the 20th century, statistics became a
free-standing discipline of applied mathematics. Statistical methods were used confidently.
In the contemporary period, kari Popper and Talcott Parsons influenced the furtherance of the social
sciences. Researchers continues to search for a unified 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; for more, see consilience. At present though, the various realms of social science progress in a
myriad of ways, increasing the overall knowledge of society. The social science will for the foreseeable
futuer be composed of different zones in the research of, and sometime distinct in approach toward,
the field.
The term "social science" may refer either to the specific sciences of society established by thinkers such as comte,
Durkheim, Marx, and Weber, or more generally to all disciplines outside of noble science and arts. By the late
19th century, the academic social science were constituted of five fields: jurisprudence and amendment
of the law, education, health, economy and trade, and art. At the turn of the 21st century, the expanding
domain of economics in the social science has been described as economic imperialism.
We have already studied about some important social science disciplines like economics, political
science, sociology and history. The following are the other major disciplines of social science.

Self Assessment

State whether the following statements are True or False:
1. Information is an important part of development efforts whether in developed or developing
countries.
2. The history of the social science begins in the roots of ancient psychology.
3. Around the turn of the 19th century, Enlightenment philosophy was challenged in various
quarters.

5.1.1 Anthropology

Anthropology is the holistic "science of man,"- a science of the totality of human existence. The
discipline deals with the integration of different aspects of the Social Science, Humanities, and Human
Biology. In the twentieth century, academic disciplines have often science been institutionally divided
into three broad domains. The natural science seek to derive general laws through reproducible and
verifiable experiments. The humanities generally study local traditions, through their history, literature,
music, and arts, with an emphasis on understanding particular individuals, events, or eras. The social
sciences have generally attempted to develop scientific methods to understand social phenomena in
a generalizable way, through usually with methods distinct from those of the natural sciences.
The anthropological social science often develop nuanced descriptions rather than the general laws derived in
physics or chemistry, or they may explain individual cases through more general principles, as in many fields of
psychology. Anthropology (like some fields of history) does not easily fit into one of these categories,
and different branches of anthropology draw on one or more of these domains. Within the united
states, Anthropological linguistics, and cultural Anthropology. It is an area that is offered at most
undergraduate institutions. The word anthropos is from the greek for "human being" or "person."Eric
wolf described socio cultural anthropology as "The most scientific of the humanities and the most
humanistic of the science."

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