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Talk:List of academic disciplines
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Nice start, but maybe we should have links to the list of biology topics style pages?
Already done. See Lists of articles by category. GUllman 19:58 23 Jul 2003 (UTC)
John Nash spent a year applying his mathematical training to some extremely complicated, and logical, numerology. He felt he was conducting mathematics (as do most numerologists) and the POV that numerology is not mathematics should not be considered absolute truth. I believe Kepler, and possibly Newton, were also interested in numerology as a mathematical science. I have agreed to place astrology under amateur astronomy since its probably fair to say that most astrologists are not "professional" astronomers. Pizza Puzzle
A tough situation on numerology: Most numerologists consider themselves to be conducting mathematics (so it is claimed above -- I dunno myself), whereas the vast majority of professional mathematicians consider numerologists not to be conducting mathematics. So who gets to decide the relationship? No matter how cool Kepler and Newton were, I don't think their views are very relevant here; they simply had some views that are now out of date. [I am a mathematician. I think that numerology is not mathematics.]
Since this is about organizing categories by academic discipline, it seems useful to ask: In which academic department do you find Numerology? Unfortunately for the whole idea of organizing Wikipedia topics by academic discipline, the answer is probably that no academic department includes numerology.
It is possible that Pizza Puzzle and John Nash have some different idea of what numerology is than I do. I tend to agree with the Wikipedia article on numerology, which seems to make clear that numerology is not a branch of mathematics.
Actually, it is probably true that numerologists conduct mathematics in the process of conducting numerology, and some of it may be very interesting mathematics. However, physicists and psychologists and economists (and sometimes historians and painters...) also conduct very interesting mathematics in pursuit of their disciplines. But these are not subdisciplines of mathematics.
I'd like to arrange the academic disciplines grouped by "meta-disciplines", but I don't know how controversial that move is. A proposed arrangement could be:
- Natural Sciences
- Mathematics and Computer Science
- Applied Sciences, Engineering
- Medicine
- Social Sciences (including Jurisprudence and Economics)
- Philosophy
- Language Studies / Philology and Linguistics
- Interdisciplinary Studies
Comments, anyone? -- till we *) 14:35, Aug 3, 2003 (UTC)
It is an interesting thing, but perhaps one having no bearing on the potential contents of this page, that Harvard has a department of Visual and Environmental Studies, which encompassses, largely, what other schools would call an Art department. --Daniel C. Boyer 19:05, 3 Aug 2003 (UTC)
Shouldn't Zoology be under Biology? --Steinsky 15:33, 13 Aug 2003 (UTC)
Tillwe's proposed breakdown looks kind of weird to me. It omits the humanities completely, and gives several "hard science" subgroups, Philosophy, and "language study" top-level positions, which is uncommon, at least in US universities. I'd propose something more like:
- Exact Sciences
- Natural Sciences
- Mathematics and Computer Science
- Social Sciences
- Humanities
- Philosophy
- Literature
- History
- Professions
- Medicine
- Law
- Engineering and Applied Sciences
It's unclear where the cognitive sciences should go -- perhaps psychology and linguistics under social sciences, and neuroscience under biology. There are definitely going to be boundary cases in any event, and different universities slice all of these fields quite differently.
Rbellin 19:17, 29 Oct 2003 (UTC)
- I agree with most of Rbellin's suggestions, but feel psychology is not a social science and belongs under biology. Chris Jefferies
Psychology is definitely not biology. Lirath Q. Pynnor
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- Oops, now I am in the position to say that the grouping (applied now to the article) looks unfamilar, at least from the German point of view ;-). Medicine would be sorted not as a profession, but as a natural science, including neurobiology and psychatry, and mathematics (and computer science) wouldn't be counted as natural science (but maybe as science). Can someone else please tell if these scheme is US POVed to them, too? -- till we *) 22:20, 6 Feb 2004 (UTC)
- till we, I think you're probably right that the current state of the list is US-centric. Let's try to fix it! I think that disciplines ought to be listed twice if they are sometimes housed in different locations in universities, with parenthetical explanations, something like "(considered a natural science in Germany)". This could also be applied to disciplines that are sometimes considered related to each other, and boundary cases like cognitive science. There's no reason that each discipline should only be listed once.
- I had used "Natural and exact sciences" to be inclusive of mathematics and computer science. In US universities, CS is sometimes considered a subdiscipline of math, and sometimes of engineering, and sometimes left on its own; and many US universities call their science schools things like "natural sciences and mathematics". -- Rbellin 23:38, 6 Feb 2004 (UTC)
- Also, unless someone can present evidence to the contrary, I don't think anti-psychiatry or parapsychology ought to be included in this list. I've never heard of an academic department or subfield specializing in either one as a discipline. -- Rbellin 06:23, 7 Feb 2004 (UTC)
I don't know how detailed we want to make this list? The stated criteria are 1) recognized discipline, 2) with university courses dedicated to the subject, and 3) academic journals dedicated to the subject. If this is the criteria that we wish to use, then the economics section should include labour economics, econometrics, welfare economics, international economics, economic history, managerial economics, history of economic thought, economic geography, political economy, development economics, spatial economics, environmental economics, health economics, economic anthropology, transport economics, urban economics, and public finance. mydogategodshat 06:49, 21 Mar 2004 (UTC)
- We are not paper, so why not? Especially, as most of them have wikipedia articles ... -- till we *) 15:44, 21 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Exactly...why not. Lirath Q. Pynnor
There seems to be some disagreement about Astrology and Numerology. I believe that they do not belong here, because one does not go to college (or university) to get a degree in Astrology or Numerology, which is what the title List of academic disciplines implies. I will be removing them now. — Xoder|✎ 16:37, Apr 2, 2004 (UTC)
- I agree with this change and also encourage the removal of anti-psychiatry and parapsychology on the same grounds. They're not academic disciplines, nor do there exist a significant number of departments, programs, or even courses dealing with these subjects; at most, there are extra-academic groups which wish they had institutional approval. -- Rbellin 20:39, 2 Apr 2004 (UTC)
These are academic fields, it is simply your personal POV that they are not worthy of academic study. Many people do study these rigorously, there are schools one can attend for these purposes. The article at Numerology says "it used to be considered part of mathematics" -- obviously, some people still consider it to be part of mathematics. Lirath Q. Pynnor
- Do you have some references to accredited universities or colleges with departments, programs, or courses in these fields, then? I just did come Google-searching on e.g. "numerology" plus "academic"/"university"/etc. and found only bitter references to academics refusing to acknowledge it as a subject. -- Rbellin 01:31, 4 Apr 2004 (UTC)
There is no such thing as "accredited" numerology, that doesn't mean people don't study it. Even if it weren't studied, you should know from history that it used to be studied very rigorously (as mathematics); thus, it should be listed here. Lirath Q. Pynnor
- While I would be all for creating a List of non-academic fields of thought, which could include all the subjects which people study outside universities, this page is a List of academic disciplines, which suggests (to me, at least) that only current academic fields should be listed. (Wiktionary gives "academic" as: "Belonging to an academy or other higher institution of learning"; the OED has: "Of or belonging to an academy or institution for higher learning; hence, collegiate, scholarly" or "Of or belonging to a learned society, or association for the promotion of art or science; of or belonging to an Academician.") Perhaps a List of past academic disciplines or a History of the university could discuss fields which are no longer academically studied. Or perhaps we could add such a heading to this list, if others would prefer that. -- Rbellin 03:28, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Even if you were right, there would be no harm in listing them here. However, there are academies of numerology -- such as those found at [1]. Lirath Q. Pynnor
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:List_of_academic_disciplines
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