hierarchy of the sciences
{{Short description|Hierarchical categorisation of different fields of science}}
{{distinguish|Hard and soft science}}
File:The Scientific Universe.png
The hierarchy of the sciences is a theory formulated{{Where|date=November 2024}} by Auguste Comte in the 19th century. This theory states that science develops over time beginning with the simplest and most general scientific discipline, astronomy, which is the first to reach the "positive stage" (one of three in Comte's law of three stages). As one moves up the "hierarchy", this theory further states that sciences become more complex and less general, and that they will reach the positive stage later. Disciplines further up the hierarchy are said to depend more on the developments of their predecessors; the highest discipline on the hierarchy are the social sciences.{{Cite web |url=http://media.pfeiffer.edu/lridener/DSS/Comte/COMTEW4.HTML |title=Comte - The Work - Hierarchy of the Sciences |website=media.pfeiffer.edu |access-date=2018-05-06 |archive-date=2018-03-03 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180303212524/http://media.pfeiffer.edu/lridener/DSS/Comte/COMTEW4.HTML |url-status=dead }}{{cite encyclopedia |last=Bourdeau |first=Michel |encyclopedia=Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |date=2018-05-08 |archive-date=2019-06-21 |url-status=live |title=Auguste Comte |section=4.2 The classification of the sciences and philosophy of science |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190621002903/https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/comte/ |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/comte}} According to this theory, there are higher levels of consensus and faster rates of advancement in physics and other natural sciences than there are in the social sciences.{{Cite journal |last=Cole |first=Stephen |date=July 1983 |title=The Hierarchy of the Sciences? |journal=American Journal of Sociology |language=en |volume=89 |issue=1 |pages=111–139 |doi=10.1086/227835 |s2cid=144920176 |issn=0002-9602}}
File:Hierarchy of the Sciences - diagram.svg]]
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Evidence
Research has shown that, after controlling for the number of hypotheses being tested, positive results are 2.3 times more likely in the social sciences than in the physical sciences.{{Cite journal |last=Fanelli |first=Daniele |date=2010-04-07 |title="Positive" Results Increase Down the Hierarchy of the Sciences |journal=PLOS ONE |language=en |volume=5 |issue=4 |pages=e10068 |doi=10.1371/journal.pone.0010068 |pmc=2850928 |pmid=20383332|bibcode=2010PLoSO...510068F |doi-access=free }} It has also been found that the degree of scientific consensus is highest in the physical sciences, lowest in the social sciences, and intermediate in the biological sciences.{{Cite journal |last1=Fanelli |first1=Daniele |last2=Glänzel |first2=Wolfgang |date=2013-06-26 |title=Bibliometric Evidence for a Hierarchy of the Sciences |journal=PLOS ONE |language=en |volume=8 |issue=6 |pages=e66938 |doi=10.1371/journal.pone.0066938 |pmc=3694152 |pmid=23840557|bibcode=2013PLoSO...866938F |doi-access=free }} Dean Simonton argues that a composite measure of the scientific status of disciplines ranks psychology much closer to biology than to sociology.{{Cite journal |last=Simonton |first=Dean Keith |date=2004 |title=Psychology's Status as a Scientific Discipline: Its Empirical Placement Within an Implicit Hierarchy of the Sciences. |journal=Review of General Psychology |language=en |volume=8 |issue=1 |pages=59–67 |doi=10.1037/1089-2680.8.1.59|s2cid=145134072 }}