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European History: 1600s-1800s

Social Sciences

Social Sciences
Reading Level
     edHelper's suggested reading level:   grades 5 to 8
     Flesch-Kincaid grade level:   9.42

Vocabulary
     challenging words:    sociology, subjective, economics, philosophy, traditional, observation, behavior, social, religion, archaeology, based, statistics, poetry, twentieth, natural, researchers
     content words:    Sigmund Freud, Sir Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, Gregor Mendel, William James, United States

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Social Sciences
By Sharon Fabian 		  
1     Caption: Sigmund Freud, 1938
 
2     First there was philosophy. Topics that we call science today, like the planets and living cells, were all included under the broad heading of philosophy. This was the same subject that included religion and even poetry. The more scientific parts of philosophy became known as natural philosophy.
 
3     Eventually, people like Sir Isaac Newton who used scientific methods to make their discoveries went their separate way from the philosophers. Their branch of learning became known as science.
 
4     Later on, there were many sciences. During the period from about 1600 to about 1800, scientific knowledge from other parts of the world was being combined with the European ideas of the Enlightenment. The most important idea of the Enlightenment was that people had the power of reason. Scholars began to use their powers of reason to study the world more logically. Before long, science was becoming specialized with many branches.
 
5     Many of the social sciences began in the 1800s. This was the time when scholars began studying human behavior using reason and careful observations.

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