...Environmental Sociology: Capitalism, Sustainability and Social Justice Paper to Centre for Philosophy of Natural and Social Science, ‘History of Postwar Social Science’ Lecture Series Peter Dickens[1] Society and Nature: a Developing Sociological Agenda There is a paradox to environmental sociology. On the one hand it is a discipline that has often used the natural and physical sciences as its model. Auguste Comte, usually recognised as the founder of sociology, referred to the discipline as ‘social physics.’ ‘Physics envy’ continued to be a feature of sociology and other social sciences such as economics; such admiration being in part an attempt to give credibility to the new and still-emergent social sciences. Durkheim’s and Spencer’s analyses of social development from relatively simple towards more complex forms were, in part at least, modelled on a Darwinian idea of evolution in the natural world - from more ‘simple’ organisms such as amoeba to more ‘complex’ organisms such as ‘man.’ The positivist agenda for testing and developing theories were also in part also based on ideas regarding the testing of theories in the natural and physical sciences. Yet, as Dunlap and Catton (1994) have pointed out, making these new social science disciplines resulted in the disconnection of the social and its natural its ecological conditions. This disconnection may seem surprising but it is perhaps understandable if seen as these disciplines trying to form themselves...
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...methodological and substantive issues having to do with political science, including the role of concepts and theories, human nature and politics, and ideologies. If you need more background, I suggest taking a look at Sheldon Wolin, Politics and Vision; C.B. Macpherson, The Real World of Democracy; or Robert Dahl, A Preface to Democratic Theory. To begin with, in some ways it is a misnomer to speak of political “science.” One crucial difference between political science and the natural sciences is that in the latter there is normally only one dominant paradigm at a time, while in the former there are what might be called competing paradigms. As T.S. Kuhn establishes in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, there was a paradigm shift from the Ptolemaic to the Copernican universe; in other words, from the idea that the Earth is the center of the universe we move to the idea that the Earth in fact goes around the sun, a radical conception when it was first put forward in 16th-century Europe but one that is now universally accepted. In the social sciences, however, there is no overriding consensus on how to analyze reality (or even on what counts as reality). In political science, for example, three major views may be distinguished on power and authority in the United States: (a) the pluralist model, in which power is dispersed among competing elites and the citizens have ultimate authority; (b) the power elite model, in which one relatively unified elite (with corporate, military...
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...Science From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia This article is about the general term. For other uses, see Science (disambiguation). The scale of the universe mapped to the branches of science and the hierarchy of science.[1] Science[nb 1] is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe.[nb 2] In an older and closely related meaning, "science" also refers to this body of knowledge itself, of the type that can be rationally explained and reliably applied. Ever since classical antiquity, science as a type of knowledge has been closely linked to philosophy. In the West during the early modern period the words "science" and "philosophy of nature" were sometimes used interchangeably,[2]:p.3 and until the 19th century natural philosophy (which is today called "natural science") was considered a branch of philosophy.[3] In modern usage "science" most often refers to a way of pursuing knowledge, not only the knowledge itself. In the 17th and 18th centuries scientists increasingly sought to formulate knowledge in terms of laws of nature. Over the course of the 19th century, the word "science" became increasingly associated with the scientific method itself, as a disciplined way to study the natural world, including physics, chemistry, geology and biology. It is in the 19th century also that the term scientist began to be applied to those who sought knowledge and understanding of nature.[4] ...
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...Sociology is and should be a science Karl Popper- If academic subjects want to be called a science they must undergo falsification. This means sociology would have to come up with a hypothesis; such as suicide is caused by insufficient integration and regulation. He rejects Marxism as a pseudo-science because its concepts are too abstract to be seen or measured (false class consciousness) Destructive method- Theory has loads of challenges to the hypothesis. Inductive method- Finds loads of evidence to prove self. Research process- If it should be a science it must adopt body of metholgical principles common in natural sciences: Empiricism- Must be able to prove or disprove theories with direct experience. Religion can never be proved so isn’t science. Objectivity- Conclusions should be based on available evidence and not opinions or beliefs of researcher. Controlled Experimentation- Systematic and controlled experiments where any other influence isn’t involved. Cumulative progression- Science is a march of progress, where new discoveries improve previous knowledge. Sociologists can adopt research methods that are faithful to the natural sciences, quantitative data used to reveal patterns of human behaviour, and then conclusions can be made which gives laws. Durkheim- believes sociology is the study of social acts that are external to the individuals, didn’t directly observe the social cause of suicide but did observe its effects. Not science: Interperatives Weber-...
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...Making Social Science Matter: Why social Inquiry fails and how it can succeed again Advanced Organisation and management Theorising 1 The “science wars” of the mid to late 1990s appears to have been an ideological contest of wills between the natural and social sciences. The natural science ‘camp’ included such heavyweights as a Nobel prize-winning physicist and a Harvard biologist and geneticist. The latter, R.C. Lewontin in the New York Review of Books harshly chided the U.S. National Opinion Research Center sexual practices study authors. “It is frightening to think that social science is in the hands of professionals who are … deaf to human nuance”. He concluded that social scientists’ propensity to impersonate natural science “can only engender the scorn of natural scientists”(p2). Given the apparent harshness of this critique, it may seem surprising to find a social scientist seeming to agree with the positioning of the natural scientists. This is precisely what Bent Flyvbjerg’s appears to do, albeit with a different premise, in the first chapter of his book ‘Making Social Science Matter: How Social Inquiry Fails and How it can Succeed Again’. Flyvbjerg articulates the case for a revision of the theoretical underpinnings of social science and the development of a new version of an old concept through a return to and reinterpretation of the Aristotelian concept of ‘phronesis’, or practical wisdom. Flyvbjerg argues for a re-routing of social science away from its...
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...at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified.” – Barack Obama The world is in economic crisis bringing upheaval throughout the planet. Experts disagree about the best ways to manage paths to stability and prosperity for global societies. The severity of the crisis pressures policy makers toward pragmatism, whatever their ideologies. The big question for every leader involves the effectiveness of their intended actions. Will those actions work? The issues before world leaders range from short-term economic recovery necessitated by the failure of capital markets, to long term survival of humans on the planet earth challenged by climate change and ecological systems, natural resources, and population growth. Potential consequences for world societies and civilizations are enormous. World leaders need confidence that they can predict outcomes when they implement their plans. They cannot manage their policies without prediction. W. Edwards Deming tells us that management is prediction (Rienzo, 1993). How does the human mind find confidence in predictions? From where does confidence come? Confidence comes from knowing the systems we are attempting to manage. The purest expressions of knowledge that we have as human beings are scientific laws. Scientific laws allow scientists to predict outcomes with certainty when they engineer physical structures, mechanical technologies, or chemical/biological reactions. Can political and business leaders...
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...cognitivist/linguist, Steven Pinker, in his article “Neglected novelists, embattled English professors, tenure-less historians, and other struggling denizens of the Humanities, Science is not your Enemy—a plea for an intellectual truce,” (The New Republic--August 19). Then the counter-arguments against Steven Pinker’s conception of the “human animal” developed into an essay arguing that the New Positivism, not science, or technology per say, was the enemy of humanism and its avatars as such. The point is not to become a postmodern anti-scientific Luddite. Genomics are changing the world in ways we barely imagine yet and will re-define what it means to be human (a becoming already imagined by science fiction writers, social critics and critical thinkers such as the feminist Donna Haraway with her “Cyborg”). The point is also not to turn “anti-brainiac.” Without a brain we would become vegetative, a vegetal…, i.e. a purely “natural body,” a “zombie.” If we make use of this “computer” allegory which is an analog but not a homologue, and which is used ad nauseam used by psycho-biologists, without a hard-drive there is no software. But is this a reason to say that the software is but the direct emanation/product/reproduction or even representation at a higher level of the hard-drive? Technology and the sciences have and are extending human potential; but they are also re-defining what it is to be human…and this is where the rub is. The point is to re-affirm the value and importance...
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...A system is a set of interacting or interdependent components forming an integrated whole. Every system is delineated by its spatial and temporal boundaries, surrounded and influenced by its environment, described by its structure and purpose and expressed in its functioning. Fields that study the general properties of systems include systems science, systems theory, systems modeling, systems engineering, cybernetics, dynamical systems, thermodynamics, complex systems, system analysis and design and systems architecture. They investigate the abstract properties of systems' matter and organization, looking for concepts and principles that are independent of domain, substance, type, or temporal scale. Some systems share common characteristics, including: A system has structure, it contains parts (or components) that are directly or indirectly related to each other; A system has behavior; it exhibits processes that fulfill its function or purpose; A system has interconnectivity: the parts and processes are connected by structural and/or behavioral relationships; A system's structure and behavior may be decomposed via subsystems and sub-processes to elementary parts and process steps; A system has behavior that, in relativity to its surroundings, may be categorized as both fast and strong. The term system may also refer to a set of rules that governs structure and/or behavior. Alternatively, and usually in the context of complex social systems, the term institution is used...
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...WHAT IS SCIENCE? TOPIC: Dispelling Misconceptions; Physical and Natural Sciences are not superior over Social Sciences. TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract. 3 Introduction 4 Recommendations 22 REFERENCES 25 Abstract. Science in general is a great and highly developed human enterprise. Its intricacies are clearly not limited to the scientists alone, but it is essential for the entire human race. If we think of science as a space within the larger space of society then it is at the interfaces between these two spaces that human beings are involved with science. To see this interface clearly from the space of science is not the same as seeing it as a mere collection of facts that should be construed to be true and nothing but the truth. Science is beyond facts, ideals and thoughts. It is a process and a model that has undergone tests, been tried, reviewed and accepted as a true representation of the processes and occurrences in the natural world However, due to the broad nature of science, and the work, time and resources involved in pursuit of knowledge in different science fields which entails different interests, and thereby different values too; and the different possibilities of knowledge about different subjects, has lead to a myopic misconception by the science practitioners that Physical and Natural applied...
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...to faithful followers. Between those two poles are some people who try to keep a critical distance and try to identify what is really important and significant in his ideas. Freud’s ideas have a profound effect on modern men’s self-esteem and identity, because the modern man gets angry and bitter when someone touches their identity. On the other hand Freud show’s us deep spiritual movements or “currents” inside ourselves. Freud created a doctrine that meets the most typical modern desire – the desire to build the new image of man. I believe that Totem and Taboo is exactly one of those works which can teach the reader a lot of things about his inner and outer self. And that from that entire information one can derive a blueprint on how to read and recognize the basic truths which were there when human kind made its first steps and will stay with us till the end. That one should really think upon in order to fill in the bits of lost puzzle in time, space and matter, so that one day we actually know who we are and why we are. Throughout his whole scientific work Freud supported the understanding that man evolved from his animal state, because of the cultural and social conditions that came along with civilization and he could not exist without them. However his attention is always drawn by the overwhelming hostility between human beings and civilization. Civilization is built upon bans and restrictions on what attracts humans and humans suffer and rebel against what their...
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...|1 | | |Politics and political science | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |Political science is the study of politics in all its aspects. Occasionally politics is used as a synonym for political science: sometimes| | | | | |as the title of university departments of political science. This may be confusing. Although a few political scientists have become | | | | | |politicians, and even more rarely politicians have become political scientists, the activities of the two, despite impinging on each | | | | | |other, are quite different. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |1.1 What is politics? |...
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...types that look at numbers and try to figure out what's going on.” But no one who'd followed Prof. Sargent's long, distinguished career would have been fooled by his attempt at modesty. He'd won for his part in developing one of economists' main models of cause and effect: How can we expect people to respond to changes in prices, for example, or interest rates? According to the laureates' theories, they'll do whatever's most beneficial to them, and they'll do it every time. They don't need governments to instruct them; they figure it out for themselves. Economists call this the “rational expectations” model. And it's not just an abstraction: Bankers and policy-makers apply these formulae in the real world, so bad models lead to bad policy. Which is perhaps why, by the end of that interview on Monday, Prof. Sargent was adopting a more realistic tone: “We experiment with our models,” he explained, “before we wreck the world.” Rational-expectations theory and its corollary, the efficient-market hypothesis, have been central to mainstream economics for more than 40 years. And while they may not have “wrecked the world,” some critics argue these models have blinded economists to reality: Certain the universe was unfolding as it should, they failed both to anticipate the financial crisis of 2008 and to chart an effective path to recovery. The economic crisis has produced a crisis in the...
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...Annotated Bibliography Inquiry Question: Can the use of social media lead to depression? Bebinger Martha, “Social Media Anxiety Disorder (SMAD): The Next New Medical Condition?”. Wbur’s Common Health Reform and Reality. Web. 10 April 2012 Summary: This article done by Martha Bebinger on Wbur’s Common Health Reform and Reality website gives you the inside story of how a woman felt after creating a post on social media. Martha then goes on to explain that after the woman had searched the internet for any and all answers explaining how she felt how she then turned to an expert by the name of Stefan Hofmann who is the director of the Social Anxiety Program at Boston University’s Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders. Evaluation: I found this article through on online search. I find it to be creditable for the following reasons. First, the article is published on a WBUR’S website which has won hundreds of awards for reporting, features and news series, and investigation reports. Secondly, Martha Bebinger is a very well known reporter for WBUR’S and is know for her reliable and creditable reports. Response: Bebinger gives an excellent example of how average every day the overwhelming effects of social media can instantly affect people. Bebinger also does a great job of presenting the facts that support her story. Benjamin, Kathy. "9 Ways Facebook Is Changing People's Lives." Mental Floss. 19 Apr 2012: n. page. Web. 27 Mar. 2013 Summary: This article found on the Mental...
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...Licensed to: iChapters User Research Method and Methodology in Finance and Accounting Second Edition Bob Ryan Robert W. Scapens Michael Theobold Australia . Canada . Mexico . Singapore . Spain . United Kingdom . United States Licensed to: iChapters User Research Method and Methodology in Finance and Accounting Copyright © Bob Ryan, Robert W. Scapens and Michael Theobold 2002 _______________________________________________________________________ The text of this publication, or any part thereof, may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, storage in an information retrieval system, or otherwise, without prior permission of the publisher. While the publisher has taken all reasonable care in the preparation of this book the publisher makes no representation, express or implied, with regard to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and cannot accept any legal responsibility or liability for any errors or omissions from the book or the consequences thereof. Products and services that are referred to in this book may be either trademarks and/or registered trademarks of their respective owners. The publisher and author/s make no claim to these trademarks. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library _______________________________________________________________________ ISBN: 978-1-86152-881-0...
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...Licensed to: iChapters User Research Method and Methodology in Finance and Accounting Second Edition Bob Ryan Robert W. Scapens Michael Theobold Australia . Canada . Mexico . Singapore . Spain . United Kingdom . United States Licensed to: iChapters User Research Method and Methodology in Finance and Accounting Copyright © Bob Ryan, Robert W. Scapens and Michael Theobold 2002 _______________________________________________________________________ The text of this publication, or any part thereof, may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, storage in an information retrieval system, or otherwise, without prior permission of the publisher. While the publisher has taken all reasonable care in the preparation of this book the publisher makes no representation, express or implied, with regard to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and cannot accept any legal responsibility or liability for any errors or omissions from the book or the consequences thereof. Products and services that are referred to in this book may be either trademarks and/or registered trademarks of their respective owners. The publisher and author/s make no claim to these trademarks. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library _______________________________________________________________________ ISBN:...
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