The Dictionary of Human Geography

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to a global-to-local continuum that under-

writes the problematic view that social pro-

cesses can be detached from the grounded

sites where people and objects concretely

reside and social practices take place (e.g. in

streets, bedrooms, boardrooms). They offer

in its place aflat ontologythat resists concep-

tualizing processes as operating at scales that

hover above these sites (e.g. metropolitan

regions, nation-states). This view continues

to generate much debate (e.g. Leitner and

Miller, 2007; Jones, Woodward and Marston,

2007). sam/kw/jpj

Suggested reading

Jones, Woodward and Marston (2007); Leitner

and Miller (2007); Marston (2000); Marston,

Jones and Woodward (2005); Sheppard and

McMaster (2004).

science/science studies Science is an

‘essentially contested concept’ (Gallie, 1964)

in the sense that it defies specification in

terms of necessary and sufficient conditions.

Numerous candidates have been offered by

philosophy to discriminate science from

non-science – knowledge based on first-hand

observation, claims and procedures warranted

by predictive success, the inductive gathering

of empirical data, information satisfying the

principles of verification or falsification,

and so on. The efforts of Copernicus and

Galileo to base knowledge on causal explan-

ations rather than Aristotelian syllogism,

Bacon’s plea for inaugurating the method of

induction, Newton’s rejection of speculative

hypotheses in favour of his own method of

deduction (see hypothesis), the Logical

Positivists’ emphasis on thelogicalstructure

of theories (see logical positivism), and

Lakatos’ defence of what he called ‘the meth-

odology of scientific research programmes’

constitute just a few of the proposals that have

been made to place science on secure founda-

tions (Oldroyd, 1986). But none of these have

been adequate to catch the presumed essential

features of enterprises that stretch temporally

from Aristotle to Einstein, cognitively from

astronomy to zoology, and spatially from medi-

eval Arabic geodesy to Enlightenment Scottish

chemistry. This recognition has led to what

Larry Laudan (1988) has aptly termed ‘the

demise of the demarcation problem’. Uncon-

tested mapping of the border between science

and other forms of human cultural activity (see

culture)hassimplyremainedelusive.

Nevertheless, the label ‘science’ does refer

to a suite of enterprises sharing some family

resemblance with the kinds of observational

and experimental practices that came to char-

acterize natural philosophy during the period

of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries

(seescientific revolution(s)). And it was in

that era that the term itself began to acquire

a definition that linked it to a body of demon-

strated truths and observed facts brought

into coherence by their adherence to general

natural laws. As Watts put it in 1725 (2, ii, §9),

the word ‘science’ was ‘usually applied to

a whole body of regular or methodical obser-

vations or propositions’.

geography’s engagements with the scientific

tradition have been multi-faceted. Termino-

logically, the label ‘scientist’ has close associ-

ations with geography via Mary Somerville,

whosePhysical geographyof 1848 firmly staked

geography’s claims to scientific status. In fact, it

was in a review of one of her earlier books that

the word ‘scientist’ was first coined by William

Whewell (that irrepressible neologist), although

it did not circulate into common currency until

the 1870s. Historiographically, insights from

the philosophy and history of science have been

used by a range of geographers to interpret

the evolution of their own tradition of enquiry

(seegeography, history of). In particular, the

perspective of Thomas Kuhn on the structure

of scientific revolutions has been the subject of

discussion within the discipline as to the extent

to which it throws light on Geography’s lineage

(see alsoparadigm).

In two other substantive ways, Geography

and science are tightly interwoven. First, geo-

graphical practice has routinely – though cer-

tainly not universally – adopted scientific

techniques and vocabulary, and not just in

physical geographywith its evident roots in

both field andlaboratoryscience. Thus dur-

ing the period of the Scientific Revolution, for

example, mathematical advances were used to

solve problems ofmap projection, and the

subject was routinely taught in association

with astronomy. In the same period,

Varenius’Geographia generalisof 1650 advanced

his own version of the mechanical philosophy

to contest Aristotelianism, and William

Petty began to apply the methods of the new

natural philosophy to social phenomena with

his development of ‘political arithmetick’.

Navigational expertise, requiring computa-

tional skills and knowledge of observational

astronomy, was also often taught in geography

courses (Livingstone, 2003b). Such projects

firmly linked geography as an enterprise

to practical mathematics and the scientific

tradition, and this impulse has continued to

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SCIENCE/SCIENCE STUDIES