Short answers, pulled from the story.
Social science is a branch of science devoted to the study of societies and the relationships among their members. It encompasses anthropology, archaeology, economics, geography, history, linguistics, management, communication studies, psychology, sociology, culturology, and political science.
The term "social science" was coined in French by Mirabeau in 1767. It became a distinct conceptual field in the nineteenth century, well after the name itself was introduced.
Auguste Comte, who lived from 1798 to 1857, is generally regarded as the Father of Sociology. He coined the term sociology in 1838 to describe a way of applying natural science principles to the social world.
Émile Durkheim, who lived from 1858 to 1917, developed positivism as a foundation for practical social research and established the discipline formally. He set up the first European department of sociology at the University of Bordeaux in 1895, founded the journal L'Année sociologique in 1896, and published his monograph Suicide in 1897.
Positivist social scientists use methods resembling those of the natural sciences and define science in its stricter modern sense. Interpretivist or speculative social scientists may rely on social critique or symbolic interpretation rather than empirically falsifiable theories, treating science in its broader sense.
Social research methods divide into quantitative designs and qualitative designs. Quantitative designs use quantifiable evidence and statistical analysis of many cases, while qualitative designs emphasize understanding through direct observation, communication with participants, or analysis of texts.