Topics and discussions relevant to Natural Sciences

DrJohnZoidberg

DrJohnZoidberg

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It seems lately there has been a lot of confusion as to what should be open for discussion here in the Natural Sciences section which has made it a open stage for philosophical debates. There is however a completely separate section for exactly this.

Philosophy is a field of science, I am not saying it is not. What I am saying is that this specific section is dedicated to the branch of Natural Sciences.

I would like to find out from everybody what should constitute relevant discussion here in Natural Sciences.

I will grab this excerpt from Wikipedia to start off with (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Branches_of_science).

1 Natural science
1.1 Physical science
1.1.1 Physics
1.1.2 Chemistry
1.1.3 Earth science
1.2 Life science
1.2.1 Biology
1.2.1.1 Zoology
1.2.1.2 Human Biology
1.2.1.3 Botany
Click to expand...

Feel free to discuss what you think should maybe be added to this as we know Wikipedia is not a completely solid basis for facts. I invite members who are actively involved in the scientific community also to give their input so we can keep this section free from peoples personal philosophical view points.

I think everybody will agree this is for the best, if not then give your opinion on why it's not.
 
chrisc4290 said:
Medicine, molecular biology (cloning, etc)?
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The list I provided is very broad, I think these will fall under Biology.

Example from the wiki page of some of the branches from the Human Biology category:

Human Biology
Human biology is an interdisciplinary academic field of biology, biological anthropology, nutrition and medicine which focuses on humans; it is closely related to primate biology, and a number of other fields.
Some branches of biology include: microbiology, anatomy, neurology and neuroscience, immunology, genetics, psychology, physiology, pathology, biophysics, and ophthalmology.
Click to expand...
 
DrJohnZoidberg said:
It seems lately there has been a lot of confusion as to what should be open for discussion here in the Natural Sciences section which has made it a open stage for philosophical debates. There is however a completely separate section for exactly this.

Philosophy is a field of science, I am not saying it is not. What I am saying is that this specific section is dedicated to the branch of Natural Sciences.

I would like to find out from everybody what should constitute relevant discussion here in Natural Sciences.

I will grab this excerpt from Wikipedia to start off with (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Branches_of_science).



Feel free to discuss what you think should maybe be added to this as we know Wikipedia is not a completely solid basis for facts. I invite members who are actively involved in the scientific community also to give their input so we can keep this section free from peoples personal philosophical view points.

I think everybody will agree this is for the best, if not then give your opinion on why it's not.
Click to expand...

Yup, this section was created specifically to get away from fantasy :(
 
Philosophy is a field of science, I am not saying it is not. What I am saying is that this specific section is dedicated to the branch of Natural Sciences.
Click to expand...

So you saying we should separate the issues here and stick to plain natural science. If you wanna get philosophical, do it in PD.

Seems valid to me.
 
Isn't this a philosophical question in the first place :D :p.

Anyway, what about bioinformatics, systems biology and biologically relevant ontologies?
 
Geriatrix said:
It's because of the silly new-post rule for PD.
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Not so silly, in my view. We've only just seen the first troll go the distance in order to gain access. PD's been a comparatively peaceful and harmonious place since the rule's inception.

Techne said:
Isn't this a philosophical question in the first place :D :p.

Anyway, what about bioinformatics, systems biology and biologically relevant ontologies?
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'ontologies' sounds too philosophical... :mad: :p
 
HapticSimian said:
Not so silly, in my view. We've only just seen the first troll go the distance in order to gain access. PD's been a comparatively peaceful and harmonious place since the rule's inception.
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Yeah, but look at NS. They're trolling everything, the Higgs threads, cosmology. Hell, we've had a homo-penguin and even a 'dreams' thread going on here now. What's next? Leprechauns and unicorns :p :D?
 
Geriatrix said:
Yeah, but look at NS. They're trolling everything, the Higgs threads, cosmology. Hell, we've had a homo-penguin and even a 'dreams' thread going on here now.
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Fair enough, and frightfully obvious I 'spose. :o

Perhaps new members should be required to make a hundred heartfelt and helpful posts over 6 months in HWLR before being allowed to post anywhere else... :D
 
What about astronomy? Astrophysics? (OK that one could be covered under physics I suppose)

But still, Astronomy doesn't really fit in with any of the ones mentioned.
 
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Techne said:
Isn't this a philosophical question in the first place :D :p.

Anyway, what about bioinformatics, systems biology and biologically relevant ontologies?
Click to expand...

I agree to the above inclusions, which I believe would fall under the biology category, except for ontology. This in the end entices philosophical debates which is what we are trying to avoid here. I think these topics would be better suited to the PD section.

Think this a fair assessment?
 
TJ99 said:
What about astronomy? Astrophysics? (OK that one could be covered under physics I suppose)

But still, Astronomy doesn't really fit in with any of the ones mentioned.
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Is there really a significant difference between astronomy and astrophysics? After some reading it seems modern astrophysics covers these bases.
 
DrJohnZoidberg said:
I agree to the above inclusions, which I believe would fall under the biology category, except for ontology. This in the end entices philosophical debates which is what we are trying to avoid here. I think these topics would be better suited to the PD section.

Think this a fair assessment?
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It's pretty relevant and important to science and several good peer-reviewed science journals are dedicated to this particular area. I see no reason to exclude it from natural sciences.

But if people really feel strongly about it, so be it, would be a shame though.
 
Techne said:
It's pretty relevant and important to science and several good peer-reviewed science journals are dedicated to this particular area. I see no reason to exclude it from natural sciences.

But if people really feel strongly about it, so be it, would be a shame though.
Click to expand...

Ontology is intrinsically philosophical, which does not fall under the natural sciences umbrella I proposed.
 
DrJohnZoidberg said:
Ontology is intrinsically philosophical, which does not fall under the natural sciences umbrella I proposed.
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While I agree that some aspects of ontology are intrinsically philosophical, I disagree that it is necessarily so.

Biologically ontologies (e.g. Gene Ontology - GO) are practically very much relevant. I make use of it almost on a weekly basis. We work with large information sets of gene and protein expression and without GO and the GO-related software it would virtually be impossible to analyse the data. GO is of course not perfect and it is constantly being improved and is intrinsically relevant to many areas of the biological sciences.
 
DrJohnZoidberg said:
Is there really a significant difference between astronomy and astrophysics? After some reading it seems modern astrophysics covers these bases.
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Well, the way I see it, astrophysics is a sub-field or branch of astronomy but I just don't see astronomy itself as being covered by Physics, Chemistry or Earth Sciences, and definitely not one of the Life Sciences as listed in the OP.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astrophysics also mentions it as a branch of astronomy. (Again with the caveat that Wikipedia is not the source of absolute facts or definitions)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_sciences Also lists astronomy under natural sciences. First, in fact.
 
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