Comparison of Anthropology to Other Social Science Disciplines - Essay Example

Physical anthropology - It deals with learning about humans' biological aspects by examining the skeletal and other physical remains of earlier humans. It also includes research on human evolution as well as forensic studies" (unt.edu). The social sciences are a group of academic disciplines that also include anthropology as a sub-discipline and study various human aspects of the world. In general, it can be said that social sciences are involved in studying subjective, inter-subjective, and objective or structural aspects of society and are traditionally referred to as soft sciences.

On the other hand, hard sciences, such as the natural sciences focus mainly on objective aspects of nature. However, today due to the flow of various aspects it becomes much more difficult to distinguish between hard science and soft science. Other social science disciplines other than anthropology include economics, education, geography, history, law, linguistics, political science, social work, psychology, sociology, etc. Anthropology is a unique and holistic discipline that deals with the integration of different aspects of the Social Sciences, Humanities, and Human Biology.

Several fields such as Archaeology, Prehistory and Paleontology, Physical or Biological Anthropology, Anthropological Linguistics, Social and Cultural Anthropology, Ethnology, and Ethnography are linked with anthropology. In other words, anthropology is the only social science subject that interlinks most of these branches. For instance, economics is a social science that seeks to analyze and describe the production, distribution, and consumption of wealth (economics). Education is a sub-division of social science that deals with teaching, learning specific skills, etc.

These are all independent subjects whereas anthropology is the only subject that interlinks all other social science subjects. Numerous subfields or modes of anthropology cut across these divisions. For instance, medical anthropology is over and over again considered a subfield of socio-cultural anthropology; but, today there are several anthropologists are involved in studying medical topics especially to look at biological variation in human populations or the interaction of culture and biology.

It is seen that they may use linguistic analysis to understand communication around health and illness or archaeological techniques to understand health and illness in historical or pre-historical human populations. Forensic anthropologists in general may use both techniques from physical anthropology as well as archaeology and may also at times practice as medical anthropologists. Environmental or ecological anthropology is currently a growing subfield concerned with the interactions between humans and their environment.

This is in fact another interlinked subject where the cultural and biological and sometimes archaeological approaches combine together, to deal with a broad range of topics ranging from environmentalist movements to wildlife or habitat conservation to traditional ecological knowledge and practices. Today, the term biocultural anthropology is widely used to explain syntheses of cultural and biological perspectives. Applied anthropology is another subject of wide interest as the job perspective is high and the work for government agencies, nongovernmental agencies, or private industry, using techniques from any of the subfields to address matters such as policy implementation, impact assessments, education, marketing research, or product development (Wikipedia).

Other social science subjects such as economics, education, geography, history, law, linguistics, political science, social work, psychology, sociology, etc. are subjects that can be studied individually. Whereas an anthropologist will have to have knowledge of most of these subjects and cannot be separated from other social science disciplines. This makes anthropology the most unique among all other social science disciplines.