We spend most of our time trying to understand an unknown whole. All our efforts are made up of making sense of what is happening around or inside us, or in nature, where we have never been, what has or not happened, or will happen. Throughout the human history, many ways have been found to understand all of these and the reliability of these ways to understanding have been opened to discussion. At the same time, the relationship between these ways of understanding, which is a necessity for the continuity of life, has been tried to be figured out. From cave walls to modern laboratories, from mountain summits to excavation sites, from a kitchen to the depths of the sea, we are surrounded by endless efforts of making sense of the universe. Science is not only the producer of this interpretation process but also a product of it. Nevertheless, the world's inequality has also affected the science. Inequality, one of the difficult concepts to understand, also manifests itself in the perspective of science.
When we hear the word science, which is a human construction, the first thing that comes to our minds is actually one another construction: social perception of science. Like two sides of a coin, science has two different approaches: Natural and social sciences. We mostly associate natural (or positive) science with the test tubes, the numbers, experiments or the white coats. On the other hand, there is social science that tells us about the world we created and in turn, created us. There are many different perspectives in the definition of the science and the scientific knowledge. So, what is the science? According to Sagan’s last interview "science is more than a body of knowledge, it is a way of thinking." Here, Sagan's "way of thinking" is also make sense of this chaos a magnificent chaos where everything is related and interconnected.
Social sciences include many areas such as history, geography, law, linguistics, sociology, psychology, archaeology, anthropology, and politics. It is possible to see the relationship all of these fields have with each other even when one tries to list them. For instance, by employing the concept of pandemic, one can explain this visible relationship. In that, the concept of pandemic has many dimensions doctors, nurses, infectious disease specialists and biologists working with great devotion all over the world strive for humanity to overcome the ongoing COVID-19 situation as we all are experiencing nowadays. Inevitably, this pandemic also has historical, sociological, psychological and economic implications. Social science is the only way we can understand this relationship. Considering this, social sciences can be the key in making sense of how people disregards wearing masks in a situation where so-called flawless health policies are at work. Some of the scientific advisory groups do not include social scientists in it and some of them ignore the importance of social sciences in social life. If there were also social scientists in the scientific advisory groups, the question of why people did not wear masks despite all warnings and statistical and scientific data could be answered and many lives could be saved. This is one of many examples the importance of the critical role that social sciences play in the world we live in.
There are many issues that affect almost the entire world, such as Pandemic. In fact, these are everything that is part of multidimensional social life. Migration, a concept causes and effects differ, is one of these issues. Social sciences can also help us to bring an understanding to why immigrants are not happy in a host country although the governments have exact information and well-established migration policies developed by finance experts. These instances show why the policies based on ‘pure objectivity’ and certainty do not comply with the society. The reasons or results of the practices that people perform in the society can only be guided and explained in the light of social sciences. Migrations, natural disasters, wars, peace, youth, old people, culture, popular culture and this list, which can be expanded forever, can only be fully understood with the social sciences. Society is a combination of all these and waiting for to be understood, with all of its complexity.
The most comprehensive concept that makes the world we live in understandable is the language expressed as ‘system of signs’ in Saussure's definition. Language, which is the one and only way for us to understand and communicate with each other, is also a tool that builds the world we live in. It is not only the transmitter of all scientific and technological developments and culture but also a concept that we build together and also builds us. This goes hand in hand with what Wittgenstein (2005) asserts as, “the limits of my language mean the limits of my world.” In addition, Wittgenstein (1958) states that language creates a social construction process which includes every single thing in our mental and physical world. Each of us and everything else are part of a complex and flawed universe that is deeply connected to each other. As the producers and products of this systematic chaos, shedding light on the past, planning the future, managing the present, producing it mentally and expressing it linguistically seems possible only with social sciences. That is, social sciences provide us with tools for thinking, interpreting and bringing an understanding to this systematic chaos. All in all, we exist as much as we can understand, and we must understand as much as we can exist.
