Function and importance of social sciences and social scientists is somewhat analogous to a spinal cord of human body. As spinal cord invisibly regulate the body, similarly the trained experts in social sciences work invisibly for the progress of state and society. In Pakistan, focus of policy makers has always been more on rational subjects such as engineering and medicine than social sciences. Social sciences are ignored because of a conviction that only rational sciences can increase pace of economic development in Pakistan and social scientists cannot contribute to this endeavor. He argues that this conviction is not only wrong but grossly wrong.

It is barely recognized in Pakistan that adequate education in social sciences is a great source in bringing change into the basic fiber of a society which in return affect economic and social progress of a state and society. Social sciences could not get the due attention of policy makers even in the current emphasis of improving education standard in Pakistan.

In Pakistan, policy makers and people have yet to acknowledge and concede that Europe and America might have not progressed in rational sciences and technology if they had ignored social sciences as we did.  Social scientists in the West contributed a lot in changing thoughts, attitude and behavior that reflected in the improvement of rational sciences and rapid development of technology. The point is that social sciences are not of secondary importance otherwise the developed countries would have not been spending billion of dollars on research in the fields like sociology, political science, anthropology and so on. The importance of social sciences is evident from the facts that social scientists are hired almost in all types of organizations and institutions in Europe and America and their views are even integrated in business studies. Except a few, most of the theories in business studies such as Principle of Management, Organizational Behavior, Human Resource Management are developed by social scientists.

There are several reasons that social sciences could not get proper place in our academia. Among them is inadequate knowledge regarding role of social sciences and social scientists. It seems that many are unable to appreciate reasons for hiring social scientists on key positions in organizations and still oblivious as to how social scientists can be beneficial for institutions, organizations and the society. If this is not being the case, social sciences must have found a niche in the society.  It is though easier to acquire superficial knowledge of a subject falling in the domain of social sciences by reading a couple of text books, however, what is not properly understood in the country that reading a few books do not impart deep knowledge of the subject; nor mastery. The author recalls an army officer who considered himself an expert of Human Resource Management after attending a one-week workshop at the Lahore University of Management Sciences.

Specializing in social sciences is not as easy as it is considered in Pakistan because curriculum and methodology of studying social phenomena have considerably changed since the movement of positivism. Now social scientists extremely rely on the data that can be interpreted either qualitative or quantitative method. Only a few in Pakistan really understand that social scientists follow a cumbersome methodology to reach the conclusion. Research in social science follow a systematic and standardized processes including reading a long list of articles and books, developing hypotheses, and designing methodology to collect data and analyzing it. After going through a laborious process, social scientists confirm or reject the hypotheses or theory. These researchers are conducted to understand how social phenomena interact or operate in different settings and environment. Therefore, the knowledge and information in journal articles and books provide us with applicable tools for developing organizations, institutions and societies.

The function of social scientists, being generalists, is to see a broader picture of social phenomena. They develop theories that could be applicable universally but at the same time they appreciate peculiarities and uniqueness of the cases and events. A social scientist is trained to see as to when 2 + 2 is 4 and when it can be 3 or 5; and this is not an absurd way of viewing social phenomena. For example, when a psychologist uses personality tests as tools, s/he is also aware of the fact that results might not applicable to a specific case. A casual reader of psychology books might never be able to know as to how results of testing tools should be interpreted. Similarly, it is only qualified sociologists can tell through conducting systemic studies as to how Pakistanis migration to Gulf countries has influenced, positively or negatively, our social norms, morals and values. Another function of social scientists is analyzing, forecasting and predicting outcomes and aftermaths of a policy or an action.  The experts of social sciences neither reach conclusion through speculation nor have they ready-made solutions to problems and issues; unfortunately many people do not understand this. For example, one of the entrepreneurs was very disappointed when the author could not give him a ready-made solution to increase level of employees’ motivation in his organization. 

Functions and importance of social scientists are well understood in the developed countries. Therefore, social scientists are considered as the most appropriate experts to be a part of policy and decision making process and distributing scarce resources even in those organizations and institutions which are not directly dealing with social phenomena. They are hired in organizations to design and critically review the aftermath of policies and actions so that corrective measures could be taken. On the contrary, our public and private bureaucracies have filled with social scientists’ positions by doctors, engineers, natural scientists, lawyers and army personnel. The crux of the essay is that Pakistan as a state and society will not progress unless we understand importance of social sciences and train people in these fields.

22 September 2003