The aim of a human science as represented in this degree programme is to provide a general scheme within which to arrange scientific knowledge about our lives. Physical scientists can understand and explain events in the world by relating them to general theories. If we can do this also for the human sciences, we should be well equipped for many sorts of life. To achieve such a general view, one must have some knowledge of the various disciplines that study humankind in their own particular ways. Anatomy and physiology provide the basic information about the biological springs of human action.
Psychology deals with the overt behaviour of humans and animals and the study of the brain.
Physical anthropology tells about human origins and differences between people in relation to the way they live, while human genetics looks at the inheritance and measurement of human genetic variability. Human beings are essentially social creatures and social anthropology deals with human interrelations and cultures. Human geography studies, among other things, the influences affecting human distribution and subsistence, while social geographical and biological sciences together analyse the growth and composition of the populations of the world. Each of these is a vast subject in its own right. The human scientist accepts that he or she may not know all the details, but hopes to learn from each of the various disciplines their ideas about the different means by which human life continues and thereby create a new synthesis to explain aspects of human life in much more complete ways.