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Hierarchy Of The Sciences
The hierarchy of the sciences is a theory formulated by Auguste Comte in the 19th century. This theory states that science develops over time beginning with the simplest and most general scientific discipline, astronomy, which is the first to reach the "positive stage" (one of three in Comte's law of three stages). As one moves up the "hierarchy", this theory further states that sciences become more complex and less general, and that they will reach the positive stage later. Disciplines further up the hierarchy are said to depend more on the developments of their predecessors; the highest discipline on the hierarchy are the social sciences. According to this theory, there are higher levels of consensus and faster rates of advancement in physics and other natural sciences than there are in the social sciences. Evidence Research has shown that, after controlling for the number of hypotheses being tested, positive results are 2.3 times more likely in the social sciences than in the p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Scientific Universe
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things that are already or about to be mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the most frequently used word in the English language; studies and analyses of texts have found it to account for seven percent of all printed English-language words. It is derived from gendered articles in Old English which combined in Middle English and now has a single form used with nouns of any gender. The word can be used with both singular and plural nouns, and with a noun that starts with any letter. This is different from many other languages, which have different forms of the definite article for different genders or numbers. Pronunciation In most dialects, "the" is pronounced as (with the voiced dental fricative followed by a schwa) when followed by a consonant sound, and as (homophone of the archaic pron ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Auguste Comte
Isidore Marie Auguste François Xavier Comte (; 19 January 1798 – 5 September 1857) was a French philosopher and writer who formulated the doctrine of positivism. He is often regarded as the first philosopher of science in the modern sense of the term. Comte's ideas were also fundamental to the development of sociology; indeed, he invented the term and treated that discipline as the crowning achievement of the sciences. Influenced by Henri de Saint-Simon, Comte's work attempted to remedy the social disorder caused by the French Revolution, which he believed indicated imminent transition to a new form of society. He sought to establish a new social doctrine based on science, which he labelled 'positivism'. He had a major impact on 19th-century thought, influencing the work of social thinkers such as John Stuart Mill and George Eliot. His concept of ''Sociologie'' and social evolutionism set the tone for early social theorists and anthropologists such as Harriet Martineau an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Astronomy
Astronomy () is a natural science that studies astronomical object, celestial objects and phenomena. It uses mathematics, physics, and chemistry in order to explain their origin and chronology of the Universe, evolution. Objects of interest include planets, natural satellite, moons, stars, nebulae, galaxy, galaxies, and comets. Relevant phenomena include supernova explosions, gamma ray bursts, quasars, blazars, pulsars, and cosmic microwave background radiation. More generally, astronomy studies everything that originates beyond atmosphere of Earth, Earth's atmosphere. Cosmology is a branch of astronomy that studies the universe as a whole. Astronomy is one of the oldest natural sciences. The early civilizations in recorded history made methodical observations of the night sky. These include the Babylonian astronomy, Babylonians, Greek astronomy, Greeks, Indian astronomy, Indians, Egyptian astronomy, Egyptians, Chinese astronomy, Chinese, Maya civilization, Maya, and many anc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Law Of Three Stages
The law of three stages is an idea developed by Auguste Comte in his work ''The Course in Positive Philosophy''. It states that society as a whole, and each particular science, develops through three mentally conceived stages: (1) the theology, theological stage, (2) the metaphysics, metaphysical stage, and (3) the positivism, positive stage. The progression of the three stages of sociology (1) The Theological stage refers to the appeal to personified deities. During the earlier stages, people believed that all the phenomena of nature are the creation of the divine or supernatural. Adults and children failed to discover the natural causes of various phenomena and hence attributed them to a supernatural or divine power. Comte broke this stage into 3 sub-stages: :1A. Fetishism – Fetishism was the primary stage of the theological stage of thinking. Throughout this stage, primitive people believe that inanimate objects have living spirit in them, also known as animism. People worshi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Social Sciences
Social science is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of societies and the relationships among individuals within those societies. The term was formerly used to refer to the field of sociology, the original "science of society", established in the 19th century. In addition to sociology, it now encompasses a wide array of academic disciplines, including anthropology, archaeology, economics, human geography, linguistics, management science, communication science and political science. Positivist social scientists use methods resembling those of the natural sciences as tools for understanding society, and so define science in its stricter modern sense. Interpretivist social scientists, by contrast, may use social critique or symbolic interpretation rather than constructing empirically falsifiable theories, and thus treat science in its broader sense. In modern academic practice, researchers are often eclectic, using multiple methodologies (for instance, by c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Physics
Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which relates to the order of nature, or, in other words, to the regular succession of events." Physics is one of the most fundamental scientific disciplines, with its main goal being to understand how the universe behaves. "Physics is one of the most fundamental of the sciences. Scientists of all disciplines use the ideas of physics, including chemists who study the structure of molecules, paleontologists who try to reconstruct how dinosaurs walked, and climatologists who study how human activities affect the atmosphere and oceans. Physics is also the foundation of all engineering and technology. No engineer could design a flat-screen TV, an interplanetary spacecraft, or even a better mousetrap without first understanding the basic laws of physic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Natural Sciences
Natural science is one of the branches of science concerned with the description, understanding and prediction of natural phenomena, based on empirical evidence from observation and experimentation. Mechanisms such as peer review and repeatability of findings are used to try to ensure the validity of scientific advances. Natural science can be divided into two main branches: life science and physical science. Life science is alternatively known as biology, and physical science is subdivided into branches: physics, chemistry, earth science, and astronomy. These branches of natural science may be further divided into more specialized branches (also known as fields). As empirical sciences, natural sciences use tools from the formal sciences, such as mathematics and logic, converting information about nature into measurements which can be explained as clear statements of the " laws of nature". Modern natural science succeeded more classical approaches to natural philosophy, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Scientific Consensus
Scientific consensus is the generally held judgment, position, and opinion of the majority or the supermajority of scientists in a particular field of study at any particular time. Consensus is achieved through scholarly communication at conferences, the publication process, replication of reproducible results by others, scholarly debate, and peer review. A conference meant to create a consensus is termed as a consensus conference. Such measures lead to a situation in which those within the discipline can often recognize such a consensus where it exists; however, communicating to outsiders that consensus has been reached can be difficult, because the "normal" debates through which science progresses may appear to outsiders as contestation. On occasion, scientific institutes issue position statements intended to communicate a summary of the science from the "inside" to the "outside" of the scientific community, or consensus review articles or surveys may be published. In cases wh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Biological Sciences
Biology is the scientific study of life. It is a natural science with a broad scope but has several unifying themes that tie it together as a single, coherent field. For instance, all organisms are made up of cells that process hereditary information encoded in genes, which can be transmitted to future generations. Another major theme is evolution, which explains the unity and diversity of life. Energy processing is also important to life as it allows organisms to move, grow, and reproduce. Finally, all organisms are able to regulate their own internal environments. Biologists are able to study life at multiple levels of organization, from the molecular biology of a cell to the anatomy and physiology of plants and animals, and evolution of populations.Based on definition from: Hence, there are multiple subdisciplines within biology, each defined by the nature of their research questions and the tools that they use. Like other scientists, biologists use the scientific ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dean Simonton
Dean Keith Simonton is a Distinguished Professor of Psychology at the University of California, Davis. He is particularly interested in the study of human intelligence, creativity, greatness, and the psychology of science. Simonton was born on January 27, 1948, in Los Angeles ( Glendale), California. He attended Occidental College, where he graduated in 1970 with a B.A. in psychology. He then attended Harvard University where he earned an M.A. (1973) and Ph.D. (1975), both in social psychology. He has over 340 publications, including 13 books. One of his books, ''The Origins of Genius'', received the William James Book Award. One of his findings was that the 10 years' experience of deliberate practice is not a rule, but an average with significant variation around the mean. He found that the people who achieved the greatest lifetime productivity and highest levels of eminence required the least amount of time to achieve expertise. He also found that while too much expertise can ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Psychology
Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries between the natural and social sciences. Psychologists seek an understanding of the emergent properties of brains, linking the discipline to neuroscience. As social scientists, psychologists aim to understand the behavior of individuals and groups.Fernald LD (2008)''Psychology: Six perspectives'' (pp.12–15). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.Hockenbury & Hockenbury. Psychology. Worth Publishers, 2010. Ψ (''psi''), the first letter of the Greek word ''psyche'' from which the term psychology is derived (see below), is commonly associated with the science. A professional practitioner or researcher involved in the discipline is called a psychologist. Some psychologists can also be classified as behavioral or cognitive scientists. Some psyc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Philosophical Theories
A philosophical theory or philosophical position''Dictionary of Theories'', Jennifer Bothamley is a view that attempts to explain or account for a particular problem in philosophy. The use of the term "theory" is a statement of colloquial English and not reflective of the term theory. While any sort of thesis or opinion may be termed a position, in analytic philosophy it is thought best to reserve the word "theory" for systematic, comprehensive attempts to solve problems. Overview The elements that comprise a philosophical position consist of statements which are believed to be true by the thinkers who accept them, and which may or may not be empirical. The sciences have a very clear idea of what a theory is; however in the arts such as philosophy, the definition is more hazy. Philosophical positions are not necessarily scientific theories, although they may consist of both empirical and non-empirical statements. The collective statements of all philosophical movements, school ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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