An invigorating influence

Amanda Goodall and Andrew Oswald’s lament about the state of the social sciences (“Time for a makeover?”, Features, 9 October) suggests that they are unfamiliar with the healthy and vibrant discipline of geography. Both a social science and a natural science, and comfortable with the humanities, in geography Goodall and Oswald will find all that they are looking for, and more – geographers contributing knowledge to complex challenges such as climate change, obesity and terrorism; students studying both geophysics and geopolitics, often in successive lectures; academics publishing policy-relevant inter-disciplinary science in journals such as Nature and Science; hybrid degrees on offer, such as in geocomputation, climate change and sustainable cities; and intellectual currents of thought continually refreshed through geographers’ ability to study the world without theoretical or methodological prejudice.

The “makeover” has been with us a long time, and its name is geography. Come and join us.

Mike Hulme
Professor of climate and culture
Department of geography, King’s College London