Question

Search the internet, text and reference books, related articles, social sciences dictionaries or encyclopedias for the following definitions: biology, genetics, sociobiology, social sciences, biological anthropology, biological diversity, human variation.Write 4 sentences describing how the different disciplines in Social Sciences help understand the contemporary society and world.

Answer 1

Biology is the study of life and living organisms, from one-celled creatures to the most complex living organism of all — the human being. Biology includes the study of genes and cells that give living things their special characteristics.

Genetics is the study of genes, genetic variation, and heredity in living organisms. It is generally considered a field of biology, but intersects frequently with many other life sciences and is strongly linked with the study of information systems.

Sociobiology is a field of scientific study which is based on the assumption that social behavior has resulted from evolution and attempts to explain and examine social behavior within that context.

Often considered a branch of biology and sociology, it also draws from ethology, anthropology, evolution, zoology, archaeology, population genetics, and other disciplines.

Within the study of human societies, sociobiology is very closely allied to the fields of Darwinian anthropology, human behavioral ecology and evolutionary psychology.

Sociobiology investigates social behaviors, such as mating patterns, territorial fights, pack hunting, and the hive society of social insects.

Social science is, in its broadest sense, the study of society and the manner in which people behave and influence the world around us.

Social science tells us about the world beyond our immediate experience, and can help explain how our own society works - from the causes of unemployment or what helps economic growth, to how and why people vote, or what makes people happy. It provides vital information for governments and policymakers, local authorities, non-governmental organisations and others.

Biological anthropology is the study of the past and present evolution of the human species and is especially concerned with understanding the causes of present human diversity. It is a scientific discipline concerned with the biological and behavioral aspects of human beings, their related non-human primates and their extinct hominin ancestors.

Biological diversity means the variability among living organisms from all sources including, inter alia, terrestrial, marine and other aquatic ecosystems and the ecological complexes of which they are part; this includes diversity within species, between species and of ecosystems.

Human variation or variability refers to the fact that there is a range of possible values for each of the numerous physical and mental characteristics of human beings. Fundamental Characteristic. Variation is, in fact, inherent in every living species.

The social sciences consist of a variety of disciplines, subject areas, and methods, and there is no reason to expect that these disciplines will eventually add up to a single unified theory of society. Political science, sociology, history, anthropology, economics, geography, and area studies all provide their own, largely independent, definitions of scope, research agenda, and research methods. And there is no grand plan according to which the disciplinary definitions jointly capture all that is of scientific interest about the social.

The major social science disciplines have grown up in the past century and a half by creating stylized answers to these topic areas: the “political” concerns institutions of coercion and governance; the “economic” has to do with production, exchange, and distribution of goods and services; the “anthropological” has to do with the cultures, values, and practices through which individuals and groups conduct their local lives.