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      Vocabulary sharing among subjects belonging to the hierarchy of sciences

      research-article
      Scientometrics
      Springer International Publishing
      Hierarchy of the sciences, Polysemy, Principle of proximity, Vocabulary sharing

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          Abstract

          To what extent do the vocabularies of mathematics, computing, astronomy, physics, chemistry, biology, psychology, sociology, economics, political science, philosophy, and linguistics overlap? To explore this question, samples of the anglophone vocabularies of these subjects were created using the Oxford English Dictionary (Benjafield in Scientometrics 118:1051–1064, 2019. 10.1007/s11192-019-03021-2). The first part of this study compared the vocabularies of the five empirical members of Comte’s hierarchy of the sciences (HoS) plus psychology (i.e., astronomy, physics, chemistry, biology, psychology, sociology). The results were generally consistent with the existence of an empirical HoS. For example, each subject shared its vocabulary the most with another subject adjacent to it in the hierarchy (i.e., astronomy with physics, physics with chemistry, biology with chemistry, psychology with biology, sociology with psychology). The second part of this study examined patterns of sharing between mathematics, computing, economics, political science, philosophy, linguistics and the six members of the empirical HoS. Among the most interesting results was the high degree of vocabulary sharing between mathematics, philosophy, and linguistics. Indeed, it turns out that all subjects share their vocabularies with all other subjects, to varying degrees. It was suggested that, in addition to comparing subjects in terms of a linear HoS, similarities between subjects should be examined independently of their position on the HoS.

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          Most cited references39

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          “Positive” Results Increase Down the Hierarchy of the Sciences

          The hypothesis of a Hierarchy of the Sciences with physical sciences at the top, social sciences at the bottom, and biological sciences in-between is nearly 200 years old. This order is intuitive and reflected in many features of academic life, but whether it reflects the “hardness” of scientific research—i.e., the extent to which research questions and results are determined by data and theories as opposed to non-cognitive factors—is controversial. This study analysed 2434 papers published in all disciplines and that declared to have tested a hypothesis. It was determined how many papers reported a “positive” (full or partial) or “negative” support for the tested hypothesis. If the hierarchy hypothesis is correct, then researchers in “softer” sciences should have fewer constraints to their conscious and unconscious biases, and therefore report more positive outcomes. Results confirmed the predictions at all levels considered: discipline, domain and methodology broadly defined. Controlling for observed differences between pure and applied disciplines, and between papers testing one or several hypotheses, the odds of reporting a positive result were around 5 times higher among papers in the disciplines of Psychology and Psychiatry and Economics and Business compared to Space Science, 2.3 times higher in the domain of social sciences compared to the physical sciences, and 3.4 times higher in studies applying behavioural and social methodologies on people compared to physical and chemical studies on non-biological material. In all comparisons, biological studies had intermediate values. These results suggest that the nature of hypotheses tested and the logical and methodological rigour employed to test them vary systematically across disciplines and fields, depending on the complexity of the subject matter and possibly other factors (e.g., a field's level of historical and/or intellectual development). On the other hand, these results support the scientific status of the social sciences against claims that they are completely subjective, by showing that, when they adopt a scientific approach to discovery, they differ from the natural sciences only by a matter of degree.
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            The Connection Between Spin and Statistics

            W Pauli (1940)
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                Author and article information

                Contributors
                John.Benjafield@BrockU.CA
                Journal
                Scientometrics
                Scientometrics
                Scientometrics
                Springer International Publishing (Cham )
                0138-9130
                1588-2861
                17 August 2020
                : 1-18
                Affiliations
                GRID grid.411793.9, ISNI 0000 0004 1936 9318, Brock University, ; 83 Videl Crescent North, St. Catharines, ON L2W 0A3 Canada
                Author information
                http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8393-4551
                Article
                3671
                10.1007/s11192-020-03671-7
                7431113
                2212214d-4aab-440d-920c-a7d739189536
                © Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest, Hungary 2020

                This article is made available via the PMC Open Access Subset for unrestricted research re-use and secondary analysis in any form or by any means with acknowledgement of the original source. These permissions are granted for the duration of the World Health Organization (WHO) declaration of COVID-19 as a global pandemic.

                History
                : 12 October 2019
                Categories
                Article

                Computer science
                hierarchy of the sciences,polysemy,principle of proximity,vocabulary sharing
                Computer science
                hierarchy of the sciences, polysemy, principle of proximity, vocabulary sharing

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