Talk:Outline of academic disciplines/Archive 1

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Archive 1 Archive 2

Early discussion

Isn't Computer Animation an Academic Discipline? -reallycoolguy

Nice start, but maybe we should have links to the list of biology topics style pages?

Already done. See Lists of articles by category. GUllman 19:58 23 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Numerology and mathematics

John Nash spent a year applying his mathematical training to some extremely complicated, and logical, numerology. He felt he was conducting mathematics (as do most numerologists) and the POV that numerology is not mathematics should not be considered absolute truth. I believe Kepler, and possibly Newton, were also interested in numerology as a mathematical science. I have agreed to place astrology under amateur astronomy since its probably fair to say that most astrologists are not "professional" astronomers. Pizza Puzzle

A tough situation on numerology: Most numerologists consider themselves to be conducting mathematics (so it is claimed above -- I dunno myself), whereas the vast majority of professional mathematicians consider numerologists not to be conducting mathematics. So who gets to decide the relationship? No matter how cool Kepler and Newton were, I don't think their views are very relevant here; they simply had some views that are now out of date. [I am a mathematician. I think that numerology is not mathematics.]

Since this is about organizing categories by academic discipline, it seems useful to ask: In which academic department do you find Numerology? Unfortunately for the whole idea of organizing Wikipedia topics by academic discipline, the answer is probably that no academic department includes numerology.

It is possible that Pizza Puzzle and John Nash have some different idea of what numerology is than I do. I tend to agree with the Wikipedia article on numerology, which seems to make clear that numerology is not a branch of mathematics.

Actually, it is probably true that numerologists conduct mathematics in the process of conducting numerology, and some of it may be very interesting mathematics. However, physicists and psychologists and economists (and sometimes historians and painters...) also conduct very interesting mathematics in pursuit of their disciplines. But these are not subdisciplines of mathematics.

Meta-Disciplines

I'd like to arrange the academic disciplines grouped by "meta-disciplines", but I don't know how controversial that move is. A proposed arrangement could be:

Comments, anyone? -- till we *) 14:35, Aug 3, 2003 (UTC)

It is an interesting thing, but perhaps one having no bearing on the potential contents of this page, that Harvard has a department of Visual and Environmental Studies, which encompassses, largely, what other schools would call an Art department. --Daniel C. Boyer 19:05, 3 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Shouldn't Zoology be under Biology? --Steinsky 15:33, 13 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Tillwe's proposed breakdown looks kind of weird to me. It omits the humanities completely, and gives several "hard science" subgroups, Philosophy, and "language study" top-level positions, which is uncommon, at least in US universities. I'd propose something more like:

  • Exact Sciences
    • Natural Sciences
    • Mathematics and Computer Science
  • Social Sciences
  • Humanities
    • Philosophy
    • Literature
    • History
  • Professions
    • Medicine
    • Law
    • Engineering and Applied Sciences

It's unclear where the cognitive sciences should go -- perhaps psychology and linguistics under social sciences, and neuroscience under biology. There are definitely going to be boundary cases in any event, and different universities slice all of these fields quite differently.

Rbellin 19:17, 29 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I agree with most of Rbellin's suggestions, but feel psychology is not a social science and belongs under biology. Chris Jefferies

Psychology is definitely not biology. Lirath Q. Pynnor

Oops, now I am in the position to say that the grouping (applied now to the article) looks unfamilar, at least from the German point of view ;-). Medicine would be sorted not as a profession, but as a natural science, including neurobiology and psychatry, and mathematics (and computer science) wouldn't be counted as natural science (but maybe as science). Can someone else please tell if these scheme is US POVed to them, too? -- till we *) 22:20, 6 Feb 2004 (UTC)
till we, I think you're probably right that the current state of the list is US-centric. Let's try to fix it! I think that disciplines ought to be listed twice if they are sometimes housed in different locations in universities, with parenthetical explanations, something like "(considered a natural science in Germany)". This could also be applied to disciplines that are sometimes considered related to each other, and boundary cases like cognitive science. There's no reason that each discipline should only be listed once.
I had used "Natural and exact sciences" to be inclusive of mathematics and computer science. In US universities, CS is sometimes considered a subdiscipline of math, and sometimes of engineering, and sometimes left on its own; and many US universities call their science schools things like "natural sciences and mathematics". -- Rbellin 23:38, 6 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Also, unless someone can present evidence to the contrary, I don't think anti-psychiatry or parapsychology ought to be included in this list. I've never heard of an academic department or subfield specializing in either one as a discipline. -- Rbellin 06:23, 7 Feb 2004 (UTC)

What level of detail?

I don't know how detailed we want to make this list? The stated criteria are 1) recognized discipline, 2) with university courses dedicated to the subject, and 3) academic journals dedicated to the subject. If this is the criteria that we wish to use, then the economics section should include labour economics, econometrics, welfare economics, international economics, economic history, managerial economics, history of economic thought, economic geography, political economy, development economics, spatial economics, environmental economics, health economics, economic anthropology, transport economics, urban economics, and public finance. mydogategodshat 06:49, 21 Mar 2004 (UTC)

We are not paper, so why not? Especially, as most of them have wikipedia articles ... -- till we *) 15:44, 21 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Exactly...why not. Lirath Q. Pynnor

Astrology and Numerology

There seems to be some disagreement about Astrology and Numerology. I believe that they do not belong here, because one does not go to college (or university) to get a degree in Astrology or Numerology, which is what the title List of academic disciplines implies. I will be removing them now. — Xoder|&#9998 16:37, Apr 2, 2004 (UTC)

I agree with this change and also encourage the removal of anti-psychiatry and parapsychology on the same grounds. They're not academic disciplines, nor do there exist a significant number of departments, programs, or even courses dealing with these subjects; at most, there are extra-academic groups which wish they had institutional approval. -- Rbellin 20:39, 2 Apr 2004 (UTC)

These are academic fields, it is simply your personal POV that they are not worthy of academic study. Many people do study these rigorously, there are schools one can attend for these purposes. The article at Numerology says "it used to be considered part of mathematics" -- obviously, some people still consider it to be part of mathematics. Lirath Q. Pynnor

Do you have some references to accredited universities or colleges with departments, programs, or courses in these fields, then? I just did come Google-searching on e.g. "numerology" plus "academic"/"university"/etc. and found only bitter references to academics refusing to acknowledge it as a subject. -- Rbellin 01:31, 4 Apr 2004 (UTC)

There is no such thing as "accredited" numerology, that doesn't mean people don't study it. Even if it weren't studied, you should know from history that it used to be studied very rigorously (as mathematics); thus, it should be listed here. Lirath Q. Pynnor

While I would be all for creating a List of non-academic fields of thought, which could include all the subjects which people study outside universities, this page is a List of academic disciplines, which suggests (to me, at least) that only current academic fields should be listed. (Wiktionary gives "academic" as: "Belonging to an academy or other higher institution of learning"; the OED has: "Of or belonging to an academy or institution for higher learning; hence, collegiate, scholarly" or "Of or belonging to a learned society, or association for the promotion of art or science; of or belonging to an Academician.") Perhaps a List of past academic disciplines or a History of the university could discuss fields which are no longer academically studied. Or perhaps we could add such a heading to this list, if others would prefer that. -- Rbellin 03:28, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Even if you were right, there would be no harm in listing them here. However, there are academies of numerology -- such as those found at [1]. Lirath Q. Pynnor

Samuel J. Howard commented on the removal of "Letters" from the section header "Humanities and Arts and Letters." My feeling is that "Letters" is redundant, since literature, philosophy, and the classics are the implication of "letters" in the sense given by the OED (II.6.b): "the profession of literature, authorship. man of letters [= F. homme de lettres]: a man of learning, a scholar; now usually, a man of the literary profession, an author." However, "Arts," designating the creative arts, is not redundant, since these aren't usually considered part of the humanities. Thoughts? -- Rbellin 15:44, 28 Apr 2004 (UTC)


Perhaps we could go with "Humanities and Fine Arts", since Arts is redundent with Humanities, see the article Arts. I would however like to keep Fine Arts in the same section as the rest of the humanities, as otherwise music will have to be seperated into it's fine art and humanities sections which would be pain.--Samuel J. Howard 16:12, 28 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I'm also wondering about the whole area, cultural etc. studies area, but I don't have my thoughts straight yet.--Samuel J. Howard 16:16, 28 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Technology

For the technology segment I added would be approiate for this page. Send a comment to my user page whether it is or not. Heegoop, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)

(Excised)

I think these are redundant with other areas in the listing.... thoughts?--Samuel J. Howard 03:02, Oct 12, 2004 (UTC)

Also, technology is the application of science, or engineering, so electronics is electrical engineering, biotechnology is biomedical engineering, etc.--Samuel J. Howard 03:04, Oct 12, 2004 (UTC)

Behavioral sciences

This edit introduced "Behavioural sciences" as a new top-level category. I have reverted it for now, as it seems like a drastic reorganization and I would like to hear other editors' opinions on a change of this scope. Putting "behavioral science" on a par with the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences as a fundamental category of academic inquiry does not square with my impression of common practice at the majority of the institutions I know of. Granted, cognitive science, linguistics, and psychology et al. are on the rise across academia right now, but most institutions (apart from Hampshire College) have not granted them this fundamental a status. -- Rbellin|Talk 05:48, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Hi Rbellion,

You reverted the section on behavioural sciences as you felt that it was a "promotion of behavioural sciences". I do not know how putting subjects under a certain section could be promoting a nomenclature.

secondly, you wrote- to quote certain sections. "Putting "behavioral science" on a par with the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences.... does not square with my impression of common practice at the majority of the institutions I know of.... but most institutions (apart from Hampshire College) have not granted them this fundamental a status."

I would like to tell you that most of the major universities around the world have been publishing and contributing to peer reviewed academic journals under the FUNDAMENTAL STATUS of "behavioural sciences" eg: scientific journals and scholarly publications like Behavioral Science (since around 1960, Journal of applied Behavioral science (for over 40 years), and Behavioral and brain sciences.

Besides Stanford University has a centre named as Centre for advanced study in the behavioral sciences and Heidelberg University in germany has what is called as Faculty of behavioral sciences and empirical cultural studies.

Behavioural sciences is a term used in most encyclopedias and journals. The term is not academic boosterism or promotion of any disciplines. (I don't understand what promotion means in this context). Robin klein 08:24, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I do not dispute the existence, nor the importance, of the behavioral sciences. What I am questioning is making this a fundamental category of this list paralleling natural sciences, humanities, and social sciences. As far as I am aware this is not a common way of organizing the disciplines. This list, it seems to me, should conform as far as possible to the common structure of universities in administering the disciplines; that's implicit in its hierarchy, where the first level corresponds to broad administrative units, the second to departments, and the third to subfields within departments. If you look at the organizational structure of universities, you will almost always find each of the disciplines you list within behavioral science actually is administered in a "school" or administrative "division" of social sciences, humanities, or natural sciences. There are nearly no exceptions of which I am aware. To take your example: sure, Stanford has a "center" for behavioral sciences, but if you look at the division of the disciplines into broad categories there [2], it's humanities, natural sciences, and social sciences, just like almost everywhere else. Each of the disciplines which your reorganization placed under the "behavioral science" heading is administered not as behavioral science, but within one of these three categories, at Stanford. And this is, to my knowledge, the overwhelming majority of institutions' situation. What, in your view, makes behavioral science special enough to warrant a top-level place in the hierarchy of this list, if that's not boosterism? (I note that Wikipedia has only had an article on the behavioral sciences for about two weeks, and that User:Robin klein is its sole editor.) -- Rbellin|Talk 15:01, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)


Hi Rbellion,

Yes indeed wikipedia has had an article on behavioral science for only 2 weeks and that has been written/edited by me. the reason is not because I wrote it for the first time, but rather the page behavioral science was redirected erroneously by someone for over 2 years to the page behaviourism (which is a movement within psychology) and not a category of science.

I wrote the page to rectify this and wrote the definition of behavioral science as taken by leading journals of behavioural sciences. Even Encyclopædia Britannica has a separate page only for behavioural sciences. The definition provided by me is not mine, but as proposed by the journals of behavioral sciences, since it is the journals and not departments that define disciplines.

secondly, according to APA (American Psychological Association) and other organizations of scientific researchers, academic disciplines are not dictated or categorized by administrative structure of departments. Instead, according to these scientific organizations new academic disciplines are first brought to the fore by newer classification or introduction of newer category or terminology in recent research papers, and the introduction of new journals in order to foster research in new dimensions. eg: the journal Cognitive Science began publication much earlier than most universities began giving cognitive science or cognitive science as a course. so the method of following university department administrative structure to classify disciplines or sciences is not accurate. Instead to follow the advice of scientific publications like nature, science, and the organizations like APA, one should follow the disciplines as categorized by up-to date journals that publish new research. Academic department structure follow the categories published by journals and not the other way round.

Once again, I didn't dispute that behavioral science is an academic discipline, and I think it's worthy of inclusion in this list as another discipline (under "social sciences" or "natural sciences" or under both). I disagree only with making it a new top-level category in this list. -- Rbellin|Talk 05:54, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)

When one is listing academic disciplines it should therefore be based on academic classifications as constantly revised by recent or latest categories as published by leading scientific journals. It is precisely for these reasons that universities first set up centres for new categories and disciplines before setting up new administrative departments. eg: Stanford University centre for advanced study in the behavioral sciences.

you asked me, "What, in your view, makes behavioral science special enough to warrant a top-level place in the hierarchy of this list, if that's not boosterism?"

well it is not my thought but that of scientific journals like Nature, Science and other research organizations that publishes recent research that behavioural sciences are SPECIAL enough to warrant a separate level of classification, which I guess in your point of view (POV) is called as top-level place in hierarchy. I guess when established PEER-REVIEWED scientific journals consider it worthy to classify the Behavioural sciences as distinct of separate categorization then it is not a case of academic boosterism. though it could probably hurt individual point of view, of course. Robin klein 03:00, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Nature and Science, I'd like to point out, are largely hard-science journals; if they classify the behavioral sciences separately it's as a subclass of the sciences which they cover, not as a subclass of academic inquiry as a whole. That does not imply that the behavioral sciences have reached a status equivalent to that of the natural sciences, social sciences, or humanities in academia as a whole. Your response is largely not germane to my concern: I'm not saying that behavioral science isn't "SPECIAL," just that it's not one of the widely recognized largest divisions of the academic endeavor. Following your logic, for instance, why don't the Earth sciences, or Literature, have places at the top level of this list's hierarchy? I won't revert this again, but I'd be interested in hearing from other contributors on this issue. -- Rbellin|Talk 05:54, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)

As you say, Behavoiral Science is considered a seperate category of science in the latest journals. Hence it goes under science!--Samuel J. Howard 04:03, Mar 30, 2005 (UTC)

Doing some more research, it appears that there are several common uses of the term "behavioral science" in English, one is a collation of education, psychology, social work, and such (see for instance the California Board of Behavioral Sciences), another is as a rough synonym with "cognitive science". The kind of thing reflected in the wikipedia article Behavioral science doesn't seem to follow the "principle of least surprise" and may approach "original research" in its lack of wide acceptance.--Samuel J. Howard 04:31, Mar 30, 2005 (UTC)

Behavioural sciences category has wide acceptance

Samuel J. Howard Stated "The kind of thing reflected in the wikipedia article Behavioral science .....in its lack of wide acceptance."

To think that behavioural science as a category of science is not widely known amounts to ignorance. Just check for yourselg the number of pages that links to the page Behavioural sciences by going to the link What links here of that article. There are more than 25 pages linking to it by the most conservative estimate.

Secondly Samuel J. Howard wrote "Doing some more research, it appears .......is as a rough synonym with "cognitive science"."

Categories of science are determined by Scientists and philosophers who spend an entire life time researching the topics under their work. It is not a civil thing to write away what scientists and researchers have done, after just some short span of google searching.

Prominent researchers-philosophers described the categories of sciences in the classic book "Introductory Readings in the Philosophy of Science" edited by E.D. KLemke; Robert Hollinger; & A. David Klein (1980). In it they categorized the disciplines Not in the way it is listed in the page List of academic disciplines. They categorized sciences as Pure sciences or Formal sciences which includes mathematics and logic, Empirical sciences which include Natural sciences and Behavioural sciences, then social sciences and then Applied sciences which includes technology and engineering sciences.

In it they mentioned that natural sciences includes Physics and Chemistry, Behavioural sciences include Biology and Psychology and Social sciences include Sociology and Economics. (page 11)

If people begin to categorize without refering to Journals and delete section because THEY did not know about it, then all the criticisms against the wikipedia by other encyclopedias stand JUSTIFIED.

The page behavioral science was redirected erroneously by someone for over 2 years to the page behaviourism (which is a movement within psychology) and not a category of science.

I wrote the page to rectify this and wrote the definition of behavioral science as taken by leading journals of behavioural sciences. Even Encyclopædia Britannica has a separate page only for behavioural sciences. The definition provided by me is not mine, but as proposed by the journals of behavioral sciences, since it is the journals and not departments that define disciplines. I also referenced books dealing the Philosophy of sciences that deals with the nature and categories of sciences. Please read the book "Introductory readings in the Philosophy of science" edited by E.D. Klemke, Robert Hollinger and A. David Kline. (1980) Prometheus books, New York. Especially the first paper by E. D. Klemke himself.

E. D. Klemke is the Professor of Philosophy at Iowa State University.

thanks Robin klein 05:04, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Robin klein has written almost nothing -- beyond citing one book on the philosophy of science -- which has any bearing on the central question here: why should we believe behavioral science is one of the few broadest categories of academic inquiry? As I have said above, the few arguments you've produced on this topic could equally be given for other disciplinary categories, like "literature" or "earth science" or "psychology," rendering the top-level categories of this list smaller and smaller until they dissolve into the disciplines themselves. It is all very well to say that behavioral science is a field of study. (But there, too, attention will need to be paid to all the alternate uses of this phrase, as Samuel J. Howard indicates and Robin klein too quickly disparages; this issue, though, can be taken up on Talk:Behavioral science. Also note that the EB entry calls "behavioral science" a rough synonym for "social science," which you seem to disagree with quite strongly). I find no reason to believe that behavioral science is a generally accepted broad category of inquiry of the same scope as the natural sciences, the social sciences, and the humanities. I see no reason to agree with Robin klein's assertion about only journals defining disciplines, either; this page is an attempt to codify the typical, commonly accepted structure of the disciplines, inasmuch as that can be generalized across academia. And as far as I can see, behavioral science's standing is in no way equivalent to the broad categories of natural science, social science, and humanities. I agree with Samuel J. Howard, and have reverted Robin klein's edit making it a top-level category again. -- Rbellin|Talk 05:43, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Because User:Robin klein has reverted this change several times, I am listing this at Wikipedia:Requests for comment in the hope of involving more editors. Again, I see no reason why this list's structure should be derived from journals rather than universities' administrative structures. Further, I see no evidence that a wide academic consensus exists giving behavioral science equal standing to the broadest categories of academic inquiry. -- Rbellin|Talk 05:52, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)
User:Robin klein asked me to provide evidence for my perception that the commonly held view of the broadest categories of academic inquiry are natural science, social science, and humanities. Let's take a random university's web site, to start: Penn's School of Arts and Sciences -- look at the categories given in the links down the left-hand side of the page, orienting readers of every page on this site. Next, look at the Dewey Decimal Classification and the Library of Congress Classification, two of the commonest schemes for organizing all of human knowledge. None of these gives "behavioral science" a top-level category! Note also that UNESCO agrees with my perception here, calling the social sciences "one of three main divisions of human knowledge, the other two being the natural sciences and the humanities." These are the liberal arts, historically established since the rise of the university in the Middle Ages; "behavioral science" (or cognitive science) is a recently developed interdisciplinary field, not one of these broadest categories of thought. -- Rbellin|Talk 06:11, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)

(Addendum: the UNESCO International Standard Classification of Education, which seems like a definitive source to me, has top-level categories for "Social sciences, business and law", "Humanities and Arts", and "Science".) -- Rbellin|Talk 06:45, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I have given references to one Book (sorry it is NOT just a book but a book of readings) meaning a collection of assorted papers that deals with the philosophy of science. So it is the same as giving links to more than 20 journals from where these papers have been collected. Besides citing a book is an academic way of writing, so how can you say I wrote "NOTHING".

Secondly Behavioural science Journals have been edited and published for over 40 years. Rbellin seems to be in perpetual denial of it. So apart from the "book of readings" I have also given reference to various scientific journals and scholarly publications like Behavioral Science (since around 1960), Journal of applied Behavioral science (for over 40 years), and Behavioral and brain sciences. Thousands of scientists publish papers in these journals and accept Behavioural science as a destinct category of science. These journals and Scientist state behavioural sciences as a distinct category of science.

However Rbellin has not managed to give reference to any "book of readings" to support his arguement.

Rbellin stated "And as far as I can see, behavioral science's standing is in no way equivalent to the broad categories of natural science, social science, and humanities. I agree with Samuel J. Howard, and have reverted Robin klein's edit making it a top-level category again."

despite the belief of Rbellin and Samuel J. Howard, Philosophers of science tend to believe otherwise. Of which I have given a volume of collected readings, with papers by several prominent researchers. Is wikipedia to go by the works of these prominent researchers and scientists or by the opinion of Rbellin. Robin klein 06:13, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)

A try on a conclusion

If I understand the discussion correctly, nobody doubts that behavioral science is an accepted discipline, with journals, professors and so on. The question seems to be if it is a discipline that can be sorted under "(natural) sciences", or if it has the same status as the broad categories of natural science, humanities and social sciences. To me, the sources quoted don't seem to suggest the later one, so I think it would be best to put behavioral science in the science meta-discipline, and do not note it as a "meta-discipline" on it's own. -- till we ☼☽ | Talk 07:39, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)

P.S.: Regarding meta-disciplines or the top-level categories: I'm sure that you will find at least half a dozen different ways to organize them, all equaliy valid and faulty. -- till we ☼☽ | Talk 07:42, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the response. I agree that no set of top-level categories has a claim to greater validity or truth than others. However, some of them do seem to me to be more widely accepted than others; in particular, note the great similarities between Dewey, LC, and UNESCO's classifications which I cited above. The UNESCO classification, in particular, seems like a good place to look for a broadly accepted structure for our list. -- Rbellin|Talk 03:52, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

A conservative approach?

Using the way universities divide disciplines is problematic, as administrative structures are slow to change and sometimes the result of historical accidents such as the merger of two or several institutions. If faculty divisions are anything to go by, Theology would be one of the major categories (one of four, actually). OTOH, some universities have newer and smaller faculties for areas which would neither historically nor normally in contemporary academia be considered top-level categories of their own, such as Pharmacy (which has a faculty of its own in a university near me, as a result of a merger of a once independent school).

Journals, OTOH, have a definite bias towards their own field. There is also a tendency for any researcher in any field to perceive other disciplines as being closer to his or her own area than to others, as those are the parts he/she would be acquainted with, and to mentally create a supercategory adjusted to his/her own place in the academic world. In any case, many disciplines are obviously interdisciplinary, like sociolinguistics.

If anything, I would advocate a relatively conservative approach, perhaps reflecting how most major, mainstream universities (i.e. full universities in the traditional sense of the word, not "universities of technology" or that kind of thing, and not e.g. religious institutions) divided disciplines a decade or two ago, then add an introduction which looks both backwards to the medieval four-faculty system and outwards and forward to new areas which are perhaps in the process of being consolidated to new top-level categories. Unless a considerable number of universities regard Behavioural sciences as a top-level category with its own faculty, it should not be regarded as one in the list. (And in each case, one has to look at the rest of the organization of that particucular institution, to see what other categories are placed on the same level - some universities have faculties at a lower, more specialized level than others.) It may, however, be pointed out in the introduction that some (with attribution) regard Behavioural sciences as a top-level category and that a growing number of institutions are adapting their organization according to that view, provided this is really the case.

BTW, lets get rid of astrology from this list, can we? / u p p l a n d 08:12, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I appreciate the response and agree with nearly all of your suggestions. I'd suggest one other way to resolve this discussion amicably -- perhaps we should add a list of interdisciplinary fields after the main list, each of which can re-list its component and contributing fields as members. There is no reason we need to have only one authoritative classification, and this might help stem list bloat. (Regarding astrology, I agree we should delete it, and please see earlier discussions further up on this page for a few other candidates for deletion; but this has been controversial in the past, so let's discuss it separately before making changes.) -- Rbellin|Talk 03:55, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

From RfC

In my opinion, behavioral science is NOT a top-level category. ObsidianOrder 06:37, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Fields for deletion

I propose deleting astrology, numerology, parapsychology, and anti-psychiatry from this list. None of them is an "academic" field in any reasonable sense of the word, in my opinion. (See prior discussion on "#Astrology and Numerology" above.) Discussion is welcome (agree or disagree); I will hold off a few days before making the change, in case there is any disagreement. -- Rbellin|Talk 00:36, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

  • Agree, obviously. Any of these things may be objects of study (just like anything else people believe in), but they are not academic disciplines in themselves. u p p l a n d 03:14, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  • Disagree: they are not academic fields in the current sense, okay. Some of them were academic fields (astrology), others may become one once (parapsychology). I think we have a problem of blurry borders (what about, say, traditional chinsese medicine, what about queer studies?), and we should not leave these fields out, but make it clear that most of the people worldwide don't see them as academic fields. This can be done with the asterix, as it is current practice, or we can add a section at the end of the list. -- till we ☼☽ | Talk 10:09, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)
    • I am fine with creating a section at the article's end for historical academic fields (a home for things like natural philosophy), though I'm not completely convinced that astrology was once an academic field -- can we find a source for this? I do not think, though, that Wikipedia should try to predict what will be or might be an academic field in the future (as you suggest about parapsychology). Please see Wikipedia is not a crystal ball on WP:NOT. The other examples you give (traditional Chinese medicine, queer studies) are, in my opinion, firmly within the purview of this list, as they are fields of study at many universities; I don't think they are parallel cases to the fields we're discussing at all. -- Rbellin|Talk 06:32, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  • Agree Please delete them. Robin klein 17:05, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  • Agree I also went through and noticed Alchemy listed. This has no place in the Chemistry heading, I'm just not sure why it wasn't listed among the others for deletion, thoughts? I think the main stem of anyone debating about removing certain items is their validity. But for this article and many others, the editing is there to make the information current, and this list is for current academic disciplines, not items which may have qualified in the past or will again sometime in the future. Informationplusgood 15:23, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Let's be clear

It sounds to me that much of the disagreement stems from confusing "academic discipline" and "field of study". If we are talking about academic discipline (as per the title of this entry), then I suggest the list be limited to those disciplines for which there are degree-granting programs in accredited universities. For the United States, such a list is maintained by the National Center for Educational Statistics as the CIP (Classification of Instructional Programs): http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2002/cip2000/. There are no degree programs in astrology, parapsychology, or numerology. However, you can get a degree in gender studies or aromatherapy (!).

Population Genetics and Population Biology

Population genetics is presently situated under Biological anthropology. However, this discipline is not limited to human studies, as its placement under anthropology might imply. As far as I know, this discipline is a sub-discipline of Population biology, which itself might be best placed under Biology Zoology, which itself might be too narrow if the scope of the discpline is thought to include plants and microorganisms as well.

I'll not be bold and make any changes but await discussion leading to a consensus on the matter.

Regards, Courtland 03:04, July 13, 2005 (UTC)

  • I've always considered, it's the case in the litterature and the wiki article too, that population genetics refers to a population of anything. As far as population biology goes its not a term I hear much, but I think it should go in general biology.--nixie 03:09, 13 July 2005 (UTC)
    • I've changed the suggestion above from Zoology to Biology per your input. Population biology is a far less used term than Pop. genetics, agreed; about on par with "Integrative biology". Maybe leave out Pop. biology and just stick with moving Pop. genetics? Courtland 03:32, July 13, 2005 (UTC)

Fields of Study List

There needs to be a splinter article/list of all the fields of study, so that some of the disciplines in this list that do not belong can go into that list instead. I feel it is important to have a place where people could look up the fields of study.

To start off such a list, would it be a good idea to just create a carbon-copy of this existing list, and add on more fields of studies? This is assuming that every single academic discipline listed here are also fields of study, but that some fields of studies are not academic disciplines, thus, those do not belong on this list but on that new one -- at least, that is the way I look at it.

But if that is the case, it may be wise to simply combine fields of studie & academic disciplines on this list, and add an asterisk (*) to the fields of studies. In that case, this list will probably need to be renamed something like, "List of academic disciplines and fields of studies". This is assuming that there are not too many fields of studies to add to the list in the first place; but if there are, it may be easier to just create a whole new list on a new page.

As an aside, I could think of a few academic disciplines or at least fields of studies that are missing from this article (whether they belong or not is debatable): physical education (P.E.), health/nutrition, communications media (this is an umbrella term for all the disciplines that have to do with it), astrobiology, communication studies, radio, video-editing, computer graphics/CGI, game production, game design, creative writing, screenwriting, graphic design, and a whole lot more. I'm not exactly sure what qualifies as an academic discipline, but the subjects I've listed have all been focused on in college courses.

Academic disciplines are fields of study. An asterisk next to official academic disciplines, according to the most official source, whatever that may be, would work fine. --The Transhumanist 18:40, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Cross-discipline studies

Queer studies and women's studies seem like they should go in their own, "cross-discipline" section, along with disability studies, which isn't on the list anywhere. --Jacqui M Schedler 22:20, 3 September 2005 (UTC)

Yes. This article fails to distinguish between disciplinarity and interdisciplinarity; the fields you've just mentioned are excellent examples of interdisciplinary fields. We really need an NPOV article titled Academic disciplines -- a real article, and not just a redirect to this list. Bryan 23:51, 19 November 2005 (UTC)
I agree wholeheartedly about the need for an article on academic disciplines and also support appending a list of interdisciplinary fields as a separate section of this list. I'd just point out, though, that we may not wish to become too narrow in the conception of "discipline" used for inclusion in this list. For one thing, it's currently a very inclusive list of many cases that are borderline for other reasons, and there are if anything many more boundary cases and potential disputes when we get to the question of what is and what isn't a proper "discipline." For another, it's currently serving as much a list of fields of study as it is a list of disciplines in a narrow sense. -- Rbellin|[[User talk:Rbellin|Talk]] 01:33, 20 November 2005 (UTC)
Let me add my agreement with this point. We need an article on academic disciplines, but there's no reason to strangle this increasingly interesting list with disciplinary rigor mortis. Bryan 02:17, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

Page move

User:Nexus Seven just moved this article to List of fields of study from List of academic disciplines. While I don't feel strongly about it, I think there ought to be some discussion of whether this is the right idea. The rationale given in the edit comment, that one title is "more common" and "less esoteric" than the other, seems a bit silly to me, as nothing is particularly obscure about either title. Further, I am concerned that there may be many non-academic things that people will want to add to a list of "fields of study" -- and this may broaden the list's exclusion criteria to the point that it's unmaintainable. We've already had trouble with POV-pushing under the previous name, and this one seems even more open to misinterpretation. -- Rbellin|Talk 17:34, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

I am moving the page back to List of academic disciplines for now, pending further discussion. I see no convincing rationale for the re-title, and I think removing the "academic" qualifier from the title is asking for POV trouble down the road. -- Rbellin|Talk 17:36, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
This page is being considered for inclusion on the sidebar displayed on every page of wikipedia. "Academic disciplines" just won't fit. Everyone in the sidebar redesign project has been referring to this page as "Fields of study" since the beginning of that project. Compare length:
Academic disciplines
Fields of study

As a compromise, I've added the word "Formal" to the title. By having "fields of study" in the title, we can still refer to it with shortened versions of the page name from menus and nav bars. I've also linkified "Formal" in one of the lead paragraphs to its wiktionary definition. Nexus Seven, aka --The Transhumanist 09:16, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Is there any reason why the article's title needs to be the same as the link text in the sidebar? I remain concerned that this title is vague and invites POV problems. And "everyone in the sidebar redesign project" hasn't discussed the change here. Should a site interface redesign really affect the encyclopedia's content? -- Rbellin|Talk 13:28, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
That's not really the main issue here. Title choice is the issue. Which is better? "Fields of study" comes up about twice as many times on Google as does "Academic disciplines", and the formality of the pages seems about the same. And "academic disciplines" is just as vague: institutions use the term to refer to subjects of the courses they offer, and this varies widely from school to school. Based on what's on the internet, I believe "Fields of study" is as clear as day in meaning. I also believe more readers know what "fields of study" means than "academic disciplines". And why confuse the kiddies when we don't have to? Add the fact that the lead section explains the context of the title explicitly, there is very little room for POV problems, and certainly not an invite. The title is not vague. And the title does not invite POV problems any more than the previous title did. If you repeat your claim, please cite evidence to back it up. --The Transhumanist 18:24, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
Okay, I'll table the discussion of the sidebar wording if you like, but a moment ago you presented that as a rationale for the new title. The argument from Google results (and/or putative children's vocabularies) is, to me, not a good test, because I do not dispute that "fields" and "study" are more common English words than "academic" and "discipline" -- I am only saying that the latter are more specific descriptors of this article's topic than the former. (And, honestly, what child too young to know the word "academic" is going to be looking for a list of academic fields? Assuming that is what this list will continue to be, whatever it's called. Or is the retitling intended to shift its subject, too?) Furthermore, the phrase "list of fields of study" seems (admittedly this is my opinion) a little clunky and neologistic, with its double "of," compared to the precision of "list of academic disciplines."
You have only to look further up this Talk page, to the discussion of astrology and numerology, to find evidence of POV-pushing that was prevented by keeping the page tightly focused on academia. Such subjects might, perfectly legitimately, be argued by their partisans to be "fields of study" though they are not academic in any sense. And we might eventually end up with something more like a list of encyclopedia topics -- i.e., unmaintainable and unuseful to browsers. Since I don't feel strongly about this and don't want to make this into an unnecessary dispute, rather than getting further into a point-counterpoint, I suggest that this issue should be addressed by a wider range of Wikipedia editors than just the two of us with an RfC. -- Rbellin|Talk 18:58, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
I have therefore added a request for comment at WP:RFC/SOC. -- Rbellin|Talk 19:09, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
List of academic disciplines. -- Shorter, and more precise (hence easier to maintain and discuss with neutrality). The hypothetical sidebar wording shouldn't be a consideration - accuracy trumps usability. --Quiddity·(talk) 19:38, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
We've stopped discussing the longer "formal fields of study" awhile ago. The discussion concerns "Fields of study" (which is in much wider use) and "Academic disciplines". "Fields of study" gets about twice as many Google hits. The use of either of the terms for parapsychological subjects is negligible compared to the millions of times both are used by acedemia. In academia, they are synonomous. P.S.: Quiddity, have you looked at the formatting of the templates on the ref pages yet? --The Transhumanist 23:05, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
I am finding it hard to keep track of what changes User:The Transhumanist is proposing. A few moments ago, you seemed to support adding "formal" as a qualifier, and now "we've stopped discussing it" and you've moved the page from List of formal fields of study back to List of fields of study without discussion. And now you seem now to be proposing the sidebar wording as an important reason for retitling the article, which I thought you'd disclaimed. Can you clarify what you are proposing for this article, or is it going to keep changing? -- Rbellin|Talk 23:16, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
"List of academic disciplines" is more precise and less clunky than "List of fields of study". Maurreen 04:23, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
Since we've now gone five days without further response from the RfC or User:The Transhumanist, and there appears to be a provisional consensus to do so, I am going to move the page back to List of academic disciplines. Further discussion is welcome, but I'd suggest that the page remain at the original title until more substantial support for moving it appears. -- Rbellin|Talk 18:38, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
Apparently the page can't be moved back to the original title by non-administrators, so I've listed it at Wikipedia:Requested moves. -- Rbellin|Talk 18:46, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
I added the move template to the top of this page. I don't think we need to do the 3rd part of the page move procedure though, as we already have 3 to 1 in favour of moving it back to the original title. (highlight for moving admin to see easily) --Quiddity 20:48, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Support move to List of academic disciplines if needed. -  AjaxSmack  05:18, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Urban planning

Why is urban planning design? I'd say it is a combination of social geography, economics, transportation sciences and politics. NOT design. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 145.116.15.128 (talk • contribs) .

Because if we put everything under "interdisciplinary topics" it would be very confusing! See also the disclaimer in the lead section: "Fields of study usually have several sub-disciplines or branches, and the distinguishing lines between these are often both arbitrary and ambiguous." --Quiddity 23:15, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Statistics

Shouldn't this be a distinct discipline? At the U.S. Universities I am aware of it always has a separate department. In smaller schools there may be a statistician in the mathematics department but you might also find computer scientists there. The great majority of those that consider themselves statisticians have a PhD in statistics, not mathematics. RedHouse18

I agree completely. If no one objects in the next few days, I'll promote and expand it. -- Avenue 03:01, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

This page needs columnization

The list would require less scrolling and would be easier to read if each section were to be formatted like this, using formatting code to make all the columns in each section line up:

Astronomy

It's a big task, so it'll go much quicker/easier if a team of people take this on. --The Transhumanist 05:11, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

It can go faster for simple columns with {{col-begin}} {{col-3}} ... {{col-3}} ... {{col-3}} ... {{col-end}} templates. Two- and four-column versions also might work, depending on item length. You can see an example at Evaluation methods and techniques. I'll pitch in here and there when I get a chance. Rfrisbietalk 19:47, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Speaking of black holes...I didn't know they constituted an academic discipline. What do you call them? A Black-Hole-ologist?Eridani 22:47, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Mapping the sciences: scientific adjectives/name of the science(s)

Scientific adjectives is a sub-project of the WikiProject Conceptual Jungle, aiming at making an overview in a table of scientific adjectives and the various branches of (the) science(s) and qualify them by discussing them, improving the Wikipedia articles and make clear the interlinkages. Please feel free to add your contributions to the table. Best regards, Brz7 12:43, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Gender Studies

What is the reasoning for listing Gender Studies with "Arts/Humanities" rather than with "Social Sciences" ? M. Frederick 17:32, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Modern languages

Surely Modern Languages should be in there somewhere? It's distinct from linguistics, though could fall under that category, and has very little to do with cultural studies of the target country. Where should it go, do people think? - Catherine

Please stop moving this to the Wikipedia namespace

This is a list of encyclopedic topics, and therefore belongs in the main namespace. I object to moving it out of article space. Please keep it there, where lists like this belong. Thank you. The Transhumanist   04:11, 24 March 2007 (UTC)


Grouping Academic Disciplines

hey let´s keep folklore, culture studies, gender studies, classics, etc. in the humanities sector please¡ --unsigned comment from 148.240.27.44


My basic philosophy to editing this page is as follows:

Firstly, this page should present a coherent and elegant overview of the world of academia.

Secondly, a user visiting this page should be able to quickly locate a subject (discipline). (In fact, by using the Browser "find" function to find a word or a phrase in the page, the user would quickly locate his/her subject, no matter how we group the subjects.)

_________________

In my view, an elegant grouping should result in a lean tree, that is, each node of the tree should have as few descendants as possible. This reduces the number of partitions (into sub-disciplines) of a discipline (represented at the node), and is more appealing and memorable. I would therefore prefer not to clutter up the first level (the level of "Natural Scieces", etc) and the second level (the level of "Languages and Linguistics", etc) of the grouping unnecessarily.

Advocates of a subject might want it placed at the first or second level for apparent higher prestige. This would result in a cluttered first or second level, and should be avoided if possible. My view is that the level of placement of a subject is no reflection of its prestige or importance. It is merely a taxonomic accident, based on the affinity among the subjects. No slight should be read into the level of a subject's placement.

At the third level, the categorization at present is very haphazard and ugly. However, the user can quickly scan the subjects listed there, and find what s/he needs. Perhaps the quality of grouping there is immaterial. However, for my own intellectual satisfaction, I would like to see well-organised grouping throughout all levels.

Next, a word about multi-disciplinary subjects. I think they should be placed into the broad first or second level categories that they have the most affinity with. (Of course it is debatable what these categories are.) As much as possible, they should not be multiply listed under different categories. (There are so many subjects that can justifiably be called multi-disciplinary that if each is multiply listed, we would get an overwhelmingly long and messy page.)

Nothing earth-shattering is at stake here, in my view. As long as the user who visits here can find her/his subject, we have done well.

Having explained my approach, these are my views on individual subjects raised by 148.240.27.44.


Classics has equal affinity with both Languages and Literature. It is currently in both {Arts:Literature:World Literature} and {Humanities:Languages and Lingustics}.

Cultural Studies is in {Social Sciences:Sociology}, with which it has the most affinity, in my view.

Gender Studies has a wide scope, and falls under both Humanities and Social Sciences. It is currently in {Social Sciences}. It can be moved to {Humanities}, on equally good ground.

Folklore has affinity with Anthropology, Religion and Literature. It is now in {Social Sciences: Anthropology} and {Humanities:Religion}. It may be moved to {Arts:Literature} on good ground too.

Palaeovia 08:03, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

I find that since I last reviewed it several months ago, the structure of this list has been comepletely redone, apparently by User:Palaeovia. I have to say that I object strongly to the list's current organization. This current list is something which few people in academia would recognize. (As one example, much of what has now been listed under "Arts" is indisputably part of the core of the critical and scholarly humanities.) Judging from the comment above, this reorganization was done in the interest of creating a "lean," "elegant" categorization. I must disagree with completely with this goal -- while elegance is nice as a secondary virtue, this list should be based on the actual classifications in use in the academic world, not Wikipedians' prescriptive sense of what would be pretty or elegant. There are existing taxonomies of academic fields -- library cataloguing schemes, one from UNESCO -- and those should be the basis of this list, whose organization right now seems idiosyncratic (and in fact this is a kind of original research in that it doesn't correspond to any standard way of viewing the organization of academic fields). -- Rbellin|Talk 17:17, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
My emphasis on the elegance of the grouping in my previous post was a response to the bloated second level of the grouping, resulting from disorganized dumping of items (see [3] ). I think the lack of clear organization encouraged such dumping.
While I emphasized elegance, I fully consider academic convention as a guiding principle, and have no personal vision to impose on this article.
I agreed that in academia, Literature (except Creative writing, perhaps) and Visual arts are generally considered part of the Humanities. Every field af Arts has two kinds of training in academia, the professional training in the practice of the craft and in creativity (Arts), and the critical, scholarly examination of the philosophy, history, and theory of the art (Humanities). A hierarchical tree simply cannot capture the full complexity of the situation. (An directed acyclic graph would serve our aim better.) Given the constraint, we accept that any representation by a tree is imperfect.
We either moved all, or part, of Arts into Humanities, or retain the current organization, with the understanding that it apparently excludes Literarture and Fine Arts from the Humanities. Moving the Arts into the Humanities increases the number of levels in the organization; it was the main reason that I split Arts from the Humanities. (As I said, there is professional training in academia in the various arts to justify such a move.) I hold no doctrinaire view on such matters. Palaeovia 00:42, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for the reply. I don't know what you mean by "disorganized dumping" -- the old version you linked looks much more reasonable to me, at least on superficial perusal, than the current one. And the emphasis on "elegance" and against "bloating" still looks prescriptive and idiosyncratic to me. In the boundary cases, there's no reason why some disciplines and subdisciplines shouldn't be listed twice, and in any case there's no earthly reason to value lessening the number of branches in the taxonomic tree more than honestly reflecting the structure of academia, as you seem to imply. -- Rbellin|Talk 02:04, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
I think the key to organizing academic fields is to outline some guiding principles, and logically group the various subjects, bearing in mind that there will always be cases where equally logical choices exist. (I think Wikipedia embodies an implicit recognition of the inadequacy of a tree organization: an article lives in multiple categories, and is linked to, and from, other articles in a complex web. Likewise, an academic field can belong to more than one categories, and show affinities with other academic fields, forming a web.) There is no single best way to group academic subjects; though some are more logical than others.
Multiple listing of a subject is fine, if not carried to extreme. In other words, one should not list a subject in every nook and cranny where it has a claim.
As to why I called the following list "disorganized dumping":
4. Humanities and arts
4.1 Area studies (sometimes called cultural studies)
4.2 Art
4.3 Classics
4.4 Creative writing
4.5 Dance
4.6 English Studies
4.7 Film studies and film criticism
4.8 Folklore
4.9 Gender studies
4.10 History
4.11 Linguistics
4.12 Literature and cultural studies
4.12.1 Literatures
4.12.2 Methods and topics
4.13 Music
4.14 Museology
4.15 Mythology
4.16 Philology
4.17 Philosophy
4.18 Religious studies
4.19 Rhetoric
4.20 Theatre
4.11 and 4.16 are, in one view, identical. 4.2, 4.5, 4.7, 4.13, 4.20 belong together, and should be grouped into one item at this level, for clarity. 4.3, 4.6, 4.12 belong together, too. 4.4, 4.8, 4.15, 4.19 are minor fields (compared with History, Philosophy) and should appear at lower levels. 4.14 belongs to the Professions.
Disorganization at the lower level existed too. For instance, English literature appeared in both 4.6 and 4.12.
For comparison, the following is the current organization, showing my preference:
4 Arts
4.1 Literature
4.1.1 English literature
4.1.2 World literatures
4.1.3 Literary theory
4.1.4 Creative writing
4.2 Visual arts
4.3 Architecture, design and applied arts
4.4 Performing arts
4.4.1 Music
4.4.2 Dance
4.4.3 Film and Television
4.4.4 Theatre
5 Humanities
5.1 Languages and linguistics
5.2 History
5.3 Philosophy
5.4 Religion
Regards, Palaeovia 03:13, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
This is somewhat belated, but I thought I ought to note that the current organization looks much more reasonable to me (at least in broad outline if not in every single matter of detail, e.g. we still ought to find a better place for cultural studies). Thanks (to whomever reorganized the list). -- Rbellin|Talk 06:00, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
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