Social Sciences and Geography

Thursday, June 16, 2011

Social Sciences and Geography

Dr. Edmar Bernardes DaSilva (Masters in Geography and Doctor of Geography Education)

The social sciences are a bunch of academic disciplines, which concerns the human aspects of the world and their connection with this same world. They are different from the arts and humanities because social sciences tend to emphasize the use of the scientific method when studying humanity, and when doing that they include quantitative and qualitative methods of study.
They refer to social sciences as SOFT SCIENCES because those sciences study the subjective, inter-subjective and objective structural aspects of society, whereas the natural sciences are referred to as HARD SCIENCES, which focus mostly on the objective aspects of nature.

This excepts geography, for example, in which one finds that this subject (geography) has very strong sides of both SOFT and HARD sciences. Geography can be considered a double identity discipline, which holds to both sides of the scientific world: human and natural. Before today the distinction among the hard and soft sciences was fuzzy, though nowadays some social science sub-fields have become very quantitative in their methodology. Examples of boundary subjects between soft and hard sciences are disciplines such as geography, sociology, history, sociobiology, bio-economics and the sociology of science (e.g. Thomas Kuhn). More and more quantitative and qualitative methods are being integrated in the study of human action and its implications and consequences (e.g. geography).

Social Sciences Disciplines:
Anthropology
Geography
History
Economics
Education
Law
Linguistics
Political Science
PsychologySociology...

Professor Harm de Blij

Dutch geographer and author. Professor de Blij left a legacy to be followed by us younger geographers. His regional divisions of the Earth in my view is the closest to reality (and I love his micro-regional divisions) with exceptions (some flaws can be found in his publications). Great geographer and also a great researcher. Professor de Blij wanted to meet me personally, but I never had the honor to meet him personally. Professor de Blij exchanged e-mails with me and also included my name in two editions of his books The World Today and Regions. I also had the honor to receive from him a copy of his book Why Geography Matters with his personal dedication to me with his signature and date. Professor de Blij did an extensive study of the wine regions of the Southern Hemisphere and Brazil my homeland was part of it which became a book (I own this book). Professor de Blij wrote me in a personal e-mail that he was six month in South America doing the research on wine regions of South America.