Afterword

Abstract

Psychology is the study of the human mind and its functions, and it is one part of a class of scientific inquiry known collectively as the social sciences. The social sciences also include, but are not limited to, economics (the study of how people distribute limited resources), and sociology (the study of the development, structure, and functioning of human society). Like their counterparts in the physical sciences, the social sciences utilize the scientific method to test hypotheses and derive abstract principles upon which one may act for the purpose of predicting events, better responding to them, or even to originate an event if it is beneficial to do so. In other words, just as an astronomer may model the movement of objects in space which combines to form planets, a social scientist may model the movement of people which combines to form cities (in fact, they utilize very similar equations). They differ, however, in that an astronomer is finished when they have achieved consistent results, while the social scientist is certain to encounter cases that violate the results, and they must be able to explain those as well. Isaac Newton is quoted as saying, “I can calculate the movement of stars, but not the madness of men.”