GRE Issue Essay 204
“The university community consists of three different worlds-the sciences, the humanities, and the social sciences. Because each world operates on its own assumptions and has its own special habits of thinking, rarely is there meaningful interaction among the sciences, the humanities, and the social sciences.”
Human life is an ongoing process of learning. We humans keep learning through out our lives. We learn at home, in school, in colleges and even in universities. What ever knowledge is imparted to us in all fields of our life proves to be beneficial for us. We are taught different mandatory subjects in school and when a child finishes matriculation he is free to choose any subject of his choice for further studies. It certainly does not mean that the other subjects are less important. Where science deals with research in scientific theories and hypothesis, humanities includes general knowledge and intellectual skills and social sciences includes studies of society and the relationship of an individual with the society. I believe all are integral parts of each other and not different from each other.
All subjects are related to each other or rather it can be said that one starts where another finishes. All these subjects are created to meet the specific intellectual demands of humans then how can they be different from each other? Science includes studying about living things and natural phenomenon and these are certainly connected with humanities and social sciences. In the same way general knowledge and intellectual skill in humanities include science. Similarly, even social sciences have science in it as it is dealing with an individual and its relation with the society. We can not separate all these subjects from one another as if they were entirely different then a person studying science and a person studying humanities would not have anything in common. A surgeon has to be a good artist to perform an operation as he needs to be good with his tools. Similarly, an archeologist needs to know certain scientific principles for his study of pre-historic people. This clearly shows inter-dependence of various fields on each other. All these subjects were created by man and after accruing such vast knowledge it was segregated into further divisions but they are all inter-related.
Although these three disciplines are inter-related to each other but still they have the individuality of their own. These three subjects can be viewed separately and they have the identity of their own. One subject in itself is a whole study of one field but it does depend on the other subject. If science deals with a different field of knowledge humanities and social sciences deal with different fields of knowledge too.
Despite the fact that each field has its distinctive features but these subjects are the division of knowledge acquired by man himself as they were further classified into science, humanities and social sciences. They are the different pieces of, same puzzle and without one another they are incomplete. Although all these subjects might seem different from one another but still they are very much connected to each other.