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What's your favorite science? (pg. 12)
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| Krypton |
| quote: | Originally posted by gehzumteufel
fixed. ;)
You posted this like 3 pages back........ |
haha, you noticed |
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| pkcRAISTLIN |
| quantum mechanics. |
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| EXTREMUM |
| Plastic Surgery.:clown: |
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| PETRAN |
i have a degree in Psychology, so i'll say...Psychology! Doh
In particular these sub-fields i thing are the best and most interesting:
Cognitive Psychology/Neuroscience, Neuropsychology (including Perception, Memory,Attention, Conciousness, Reasoning, Language etc.)
Biological Psychology/ Behavioural Neuroscience, Psychophysiology
Clinical and Abnormal Psychology
Evolutionary Psychology
(Social Psychology is also good, especially Social Cognition, and the new exciting field of social cognitive neuroscience in which typical social psychology experiments are accompanied by brain-scans)
some other sciences that i like:
Cosmology
General Physiology
i got an interest in Economics lately, just to see how the...world works! But i'm never too interested in pure social science...
Oh and ...
Archaeology (middle-east, especially Sumerian and Babylonian and ancient Greek ofcourse heh)
And to clear things up with categorizations, some examples:
Natural Sciences:
Physics
Chemistry
Biology
Geology
Behavioural Sciences:
Psychology
Cognitive Science
Social Sciences:
Sociology
Archaeology
Economics
etc.
A different way would be to categorise the sciences not in terms of what they study (as in my previous examples) but in terms of the degree that quantitative techniques are used in research and formulation of theory. In this way Sciences can be categorised as "Hard", "Medium" and "Soft".
"Hard Sciences" (Maths are used in both research and formulation of theory. So quantitative methods are used at all cases)
Physics
Chemistry
Geology (a lot of it)
etc.
"Medium Sciences" (Maths are used in research but most of the times the theoretical formulation is not quantitative but rather described in qualitative terms.)
Biological Sciences/Medical Sciences
Psychology
etc.
"Soft Sciences" (Maths are not used at all in both research and theoretical formulation. Instead of that, both employ qualitative techniques)
Sociology
Archaeology
etc.
The reason that quantitative techniques are less and less used as one goes from basic physical phenomena towards whole societies, is because basic physical phenomena are often comprised by a limited amount of factors which the human mind can handle quantitavily (even if these basic factors are super-strings in 11-dimensional space!)As we progress from molecules, towards cells, systems, individuals, behaviour and societies though, things become tooooo complex and chaotic, making it almost impossible to come up with laws and formulas. As a result, most scientists choose descriptive language in those fields instead of maths (although "complexity theory" and "chaos" promise to change things...it strue that some biologists have already tried to quantize biological structures such as viruses, some cognitive psychologists have tried to build cognitive models of perception-action based on Bayesian mathematics, whilst some sociologists started to use complex computer programs in order to emulate complex social phenomena. So, things slowly change) |
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| MrJiveBoJingles |
| quote: | Originally posted by Lira
Wait, sociology is a science (unlike math)! If anything, you can say that physics is a hard science while sociology isn't, although this too has been disputed in the history of science. |
How do you test a sociological theory?
Give a couple of examples... |
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| PETRAN |
| quote: | Originally posted by MrJiveBoJingles
How do you test a sociological theory?
Give a couple of examples... |
By observation and other qualitative methods such as ethnography doh, see my previous post don't argue for no reason. Sociology is a science...its called social science. |
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| MrJiveBoJingles |
I asked for examples of a sociological theory being proven or disproved by empirical evidence...
Does anyone know of any? :p |
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| PETRAN |
| quote: | Originally posted by MrJiveBoJingles
I asked for examples of a sociological theory being proven or disproved by empirical evidence...
Does anyone know of any? :p |
Well, for being a "science" i guess...yes!
But i'm not personally not into sociology so i don't know of any specific sociological theories, lol. |
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| Lira |
| quote: | Originally posted by MrJiveBoJingles
How do you test a sociological theory?
Give a couple of examples... |
Why not read a famous case study? :)
edit: Thanks for the correction, gehz, I kinda neglected the easiest sentence, heh :D |
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| Lira |
| quote: | Originally posted by PETRAN
But i'm not personally not into sociology so i don't know of any specific sociological theories, lol. |
I do know quite a few, but I'd feel more confident talking about sociolinguistics than sociology proper (reason why I just "handed" him that book).
In any case, MrJBJ, what you might find strange about this kind of study is that you don't really need (or have) a lab to perform the experiences you want. Rather, you can use relevant stats (and all kinds of quantitative data there is) and interviews (and qualitative data in general), for example, and try to make sense of it all.
Unfortunately, you can't just lock people up and see what happens. Only nutting psychologists in Stanford do that :D |
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| AustralianGQ |
| astronomy...always loved it since i was a kid. |
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| MrJiveBoJingles |
| quote: | Originally posted by Lira
In any case, MrJBJ, what you might find strange about this kind of study is that you don't really need (or have) a lab to perform the experiences you want. Rather, you can use relevant stats (and all kinds of quantitative data there is) and interviews (and qualitative data in general), for example, and try to make sense of it all. |
But it isn't just "quantitative data" that makes something scientific. It's how the data is generated and how you use it to make predictions of some kind. I could collect data about how well the height of trees on roads correlated to the number of gum stains on the sidewalk, but I wouldn't be doing "science" by virtue of that.
:p
It doesn't have to involve a lab, either.
Physics can predict the movements of planets based on its laws.
Chemistry can predict how two substances will interact, even if they've been combined before.
Biology can predict how organisms will response to medications or environmental conditions, even if the organism has never come into contact with those things before.
Regarding Durkheim, how would a person go about testing his theory of "social integration" as an explanation for lower suicide rates in Catholic countries? And how would one know that "social integration" and not something else explains the data, given that Catholic and Protestant countries differ in plenty of other ways as well? |
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