Hierarchy of the sciences

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Citation bot (talk | contribs) at 21:27, 27 May 2020 (Add: author pars. 1-1. Removed URL that duplicated unique identifier. Removed parameters. Some additions/deletions were actually parameter name changes. | You can use this bot yourself. Report bugs here. | Activated by AManWithNoPlan | All pages linked from User:AManWithNoPlan/sandbox2 | via #UCB_webform_linked). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

The scale of the Universe mapped to branches of science and showing how one system is built atop the next through the hierarchy of the sciences.
Not to be confused with Hard and soft science.

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 is the social sciences.[1][2] 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.[3]

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 physical sciences.[4] It has also been found that the degree of scientific consensus is highest in the physical sciences, lowest in the social sciences, and intermediate in the biological sciences.[5] Dean Simonton argues that a composite measure of the scientific status of disciplines ranks psychology much closer to biology than to sociology.[6]

References

  1. ^ "Comte - The Work - Hierarchy of the Sciences". media.pfeiffer.edu. Retrieved 2018-05-06.
  2. ^ Bourdeau, Michel (2018-05-08). "4.2 The classification of the sciences and philosophy of science". Auguste Comte. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Archived from the original on 2019-05-12.
  3. ^ Cole, Stephen (July 1983). "The Hierarchy of the Sciences?". American Journal of Sociology. 89 (1): 111–139. doi:10.1086/227835. ISSN 0002-9602.
  4. ^ Fanelli, Daniele (2010-04-07). ""Positive" Results Increase Down the Hierarchy of the Sciences". PLOS ONE. 5 (4): e10068. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0010068. PMC 2850928. PMID 20383332.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: unflagged free DOI (link)
  5. ^ Fanelli, Daniele; Glänzel, Wolfgang (2013-06-26). "Bibliometric Evidence for a Hierarchy of the Sciences". PLOS ONE. 8 (6): e66938. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0066938. PMC 3694152. PMID 23840557.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: unflagged free DOI (link)
  6. ^ Simonton, Dean Keith (2004). "Psychology's Status as a Scientific Discipline: Its Empirical Placement Within an Implicit Hierarchy of the Sciences". Review of General Psychology. 8 (1): 59–67. doi:10.1037/1089-2680.8.1.59.


Stub icon

This philosophy-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hierarchy_of_the_sciences&oldid=959256108"