“One missing ingredient for this future is the unification of our knowledge about humankind’s deliberate behaviour, in effect, the unification of the social sciences, which is the subject matter of this website.”

Imagine

Imagine if people could better understand their own and other people’s individual, social and societal behaviour. Individuals’, groups’ and society’s actions would make more sense. Politicians, business people or teachers could have greater confidence in their decisions about society, customers or students. In this imaginary world, the interplay between individual, social and societal behaviour would be more clearly understood. This scenario is not necessarily wishful thinking but could, perhaps, be made a reality. One missing ingredient for this future is the unification of our knowledge about humankind’s deliberate behaviour, in effect, the unification of the social sciences, which is the subject matter of this website.

“ ... humankind could gain the knowledge to exploit promising opportunities, while providing fresh insights into problems which may now seem intractable.”

The benefits

The advantages which could follow from this unification of the social sciences are potentially numerous. We may be better able to deal with some of the challenges of our time, for example, the environment and international relations, and, furthermore, to:

• Understand more precisely the reasons for social change
• Explain why some enterprises or organisations succeed, while others fail
• Anticipate, to a greater extent, the effects of giving authority to an individual or group
• Foresee more clearly individuals’, groups’ and societies’ responses to an emergency

In summary, humankind could gain the knowledge to exploit promising opportunities, while providing fresh insights into problems which may now seem intractable.

“ ... humankind’s characteristics are those of a reasoning, social, nomadic, tool-using, omnivorous hunter-gatherer who was adapted to the severe economic and social challenges of life in conditions of intense, short-term environmental variability. ”

The proposal

A consequence of the advances in knowledge during the last 40 years is a greater scientific insight into the nature of humankind. One outcome which has arisen from this progress may seem surprising. The evidence suggests that humankind’s characteristics are those of a reasoning, social, nomadic, tool-using, omnivorous hunter-gatherer who was adapted to the severe economic and social challenges of life in conditions of intense, short-term environmental variability. This insight forms the basis for a proposed unification of the social sciences which is called hunter-gatherer environmental variability theory. One result of this proposed unification of social science is that all the social sciences would share the same theoretical framework.

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