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User:GCooper316/sandbox/Approaches to Knowledge/2020-21/Seminar group 10/History

What is managerial economics?
Managerial economics, also known as Business Economics, refers to the application of economic theories, concepts and tools in the context of a business. It sits as the intersection between the disciplines of economics and management. The topic draws heavily from the microeconomic theory which deals with the behaviour of individual firms and consumers, as well as from quantitative tools such as statistical methods and calculus. It is often seen as the branch between economics in theory and in practice under a business setting, with the goal of optimising a firm’s objectives under the economic condition of scarcity. For example, the game theory addresses the uncertainty and lack of knowledge for businesses, and operations research provides scientific criteria to minimise cost and optimise profit.

Establishing managerial economics as a discipline
The establishment of a discipline can be defined as the formalisation of the discipline in society, such as being taught at a university level or officially researched by a group. Applying this to managerial economics, one can clearly see it is a discipline. Not only is it taught in most universities, but many universities also allow students to graduate with it as a major, with UCLA as an example. In addition to this, the topic is commonly researched and published due to the wide recognition of the uses of economic theories in business settings. A notable publication on this topic is the best selling “Managerial Economics and Business Strategy” by Micheal Baye. Overall, from this, it is clear managerial economics is a discipline.

The history of management and economics as separate disciplines
Economics refers to the study of the ways in which different parties such as firms, consumers, and governments allocate scarce resources and make choices. As a topic, it was fairly obscure prior to the 1870s, even with economics concepts such as “the invisible hand” being introduced in the 1750s by Adam Smith. It was only from the 1870s-1900s in which it received recognition as an independent discipline, gaining popularity amongst students. The subject also evolved in professional training, with cultural degrees being established in universities, followed by a professional doctorate.

Meanwhile, management refers to the study of principles and practices in administration within a business organisation. Management as a discipline emerged when the industrial revolution provided organisations with the need to develop detailed strategies to manage mass production, profit optimisation, and more. While business classes were taught in small amounts during the 1800s, the first institute for higher education on the topic was in 1881 when Wharton Business School was founded. Since then, the subject underwent significant development in concepts and theories and is one of the most popular majors in universities in the modern age.

For much of business history, business practitioners have resisted integrating economic concepts into decisions, citing the restriction assumptions that economic theories are often based upon. For example, one such assumption is that all parties are rational decision-makers, and consider options from a purely logical perspective rather than due to emotion or moral elements.

The emergence of managerial economics from business management and economics
Relative to economics and management, managerial economics as a discipline is relatively new, due to the aforementioned avoidance of economics by business practitioners. However, in the mid-1950s, this began to change when economists began to develop more realistic ways of applying economic theory in business situations. A key moment was economist Joel Dean’s publication of “Managerial Economics” in 1951, which caused the subject to begin to gain popularity, with Dean being termed “the founder of business economics” later on. Dean’s focus on making economics more practical led to economists in the 1970s and 1980s developing new theories that incorporated more realistic ideas of behaviour in humans and organisations. Since then, managerial economics has gained popularity amongst academics and is even taught as an essential part of many economics programs on top of being a separate major.

An Introduction to Applied Art as a discipline
Applied art, as the name suggests, is the field of study that is concerned with artistically producing functional everyday objects. It is its’ own distinct area of study that is not to be confused with fine art, which is the practice of creating art purely for aesthetic value with no emphasis placed on functionality. Some (sub)disciplines that fall under applied arts are architecture, industrial design, decorative art, and graphic design.

Though it is widely considered a category of disciplines, applied art can also be studied as a standalone course, whereby Bachelor of Applied Arts programmes are offered at universities such as Central Michigan University and the University of New Brunswick. However, it is more common for practitioners to specialise in one discipline under applied arts.

History of Applied Art and the Industrial Revolution’s Impact
Various forms of applied art can be traced back to ancient times, way before applied art was established as a genre. One of the earliest examples would include Chinese pottery, as the oldest piece of Chinese pottery is considered to be 20,000 years old. Furthermore, some disciplines that are considered to be an applied art today gained recognition as an individual profession before applied art itself. For example, architecture - governing bodies for architects existed years before applied art was a commonly known term. Yet, the recognition of applied art as an independent subject area is important for the disciplines that operate under it - it provides a sense of identity and clarity to each discipline. This happened in the late 19th century, thanks to the Arts & Crafts movement.

The Arts & Crafts Movement (1860-1920) originated from a collective distaste for the poor craftsmanship and production circumstances that decorative art was subjected to, which was widely believed to be the consequence of the Industrial Revolution, especially in Britain. The technological feats of the Industrial Revolution created unrealistic demands for quantity, resulting in a large number of workers to be forced into terrible working conditions even if it meant that they were unprepared. Criticism for this phenomenon was a significant part of the movement and led to the reformation of social and design principles. Rather than relying heavily on machines and exploitative commercial processes, people were encouraged to engage in production to create useful products with aesthetic intention. In other words, people were introduced and encouraged to participate in applied arts during this time.

Amidst the movement, the Art Workers’ Guild was formed in 1884. The Guild’s goal was “to create a meeting place for the fine arts and the applied arts on an equal footing”. It was one of the first organisations that allowed those involved in applied arts to partake in, and its’ initiation is likely to have led to the recognition and establishment of applied arts as a distinct discipline/subject area.

Technology’s Impact on the Applied Arts
Even though the history of applied art tells the tale of technology’s negative effects, it is worth mentioning that the disciplines under applied art have benefited from technology in positive ways.

Much of the development in the field of architecture owes to technological advancements. In the late 18th century, the creation of various new construction materials was made possible due to the technology available during the Industrial Revolution, expanding the possibilities within the profession. Unsurprisingly, new machinery and methods of manufacture also made architecture design easier, and this wasn’t something that only occurred during the Industrial Revolution. Technology is always improving, so design processes become more efficient, and the capacity of the discipline grows.

Technology also acts as a necessity for some disciplines - without inventions like the computer or factory machines, disciplines like Graphic Design or Industrial Design may be highly inconvenient to pursue or may cease to exist altogether.

What is Design Thinking?
Design thinking is an emerging approach to problem-solving, that uses scientific tools as well as the knowledge of human behaviour to address a variety of complex challenges. As defined by Tim Brown, the executive chair of IDEO where the term originated, design thinking is "a human-centred approach to innovation that draws from the designer’s toolkit to integrate the needs of people, the possibilities of technology, and the requirements for business success." Design thinking has been practised for centuries, however, as a methodology and a discipline, it is still in its infancy.

The History and Emergence of Design Thinking
Isambard Kingdom Brunel was perhaps the first unintentional practitioner of design thinking when designing the Great Western Railway in 1833, he talked about wanting to create an *experience* for the passenger, rather than simply designing tunnels and rails across valleys. Although this is an example we may now call the first work in the discipline, it does not mark the beginning of the history of Design Thinking as a discipline.

John E. Arnold, an American mechanical engineer was the first to use the term 'design thinking' in his 1959 publication "Creative Engineering: Promoting Innovation by Thinking Differently". He outlines the four main principles of design thinking: 1) novel functionality, 2) higher performance levels of a solution, 3) lower production costs 4) increased salability. Even though innovation is still an important aspect of design thinking, Arnold did not mention another fundamental aim: the importance of bringing about social good and design being human-centred. This goal of design thinking was outlined by another important publication in the history of design thinking: Ken Garland's First Things First Manifesto (1964).

The Establishment of Design Thinking as a Discipline
The real turning point in establishing design thinking as a product of society — the collective effect of market needs, technology, collaborative activity — and therefore a discipline came in 1978 when the design consultancy IDEO adapted design thinking as their learnable and teachable mindset. They are teaching the methodologies of a new discipline by bringing together professionals from the humanities (such as anthropologists, psychologists and lawyers) with designers, engineers and architects to work together and solve problems in human-centred ways. Their teaching has introduced various industries to the practice of design thinking. The first academic symposium on Research in Design Thinking was held in 1991 at Delft University. Since then, design thinking has been incorporated into the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme and is taught at Stanford University's design school and the MIT D-lab among other notable institutions.

What is Textile Engineering
The concept of textile engineering can be defined as the combination of textile manufacturing and engineering, where principles of science, technologies and textile come together in order to create new fibre, products and apparel processes. Textile engineers work on the creation and development of new fibres and textiles and improve already existing ones, they find a new use for yarns, machinery, fabrics, textile and finishes.

Textile engeneering as discipline
Though the use of the term “textile engineering” can be traced back to the 20th century, the field is still underappreciated and not well recognised as its’ principles coincide with many other engineering degrees. Textile engineering is still too limited within academic and research environments compared to mechanical, civil, or electrical engineering, as the programme of education is still unclear, which is why it is not taught in the majority of universities.

Yet the discipline is already taking place in such universities such as NC State University, Technical University of Liberec or RWTH International Academy In most cases, it is a combination of interdisciplinary curriculum and engineering principles from other engineering degrees and specializations, since there is still not enough academic material and books to support the program. Nevertheless, this degree touches upon all aspects of creating fibres, textiles, and other materials needed for production. It teaches students not only how to produce already existing materials but gives the base of knowledge to create new, not yet discovered textiles or natural-based fibre which later can be applied to mechanics, biochemistry and bioengineering.

The need for Textile Engineering
The need in the discipline occurred back in the 18th century when with the technological progress and Industrial Revolution there was a need for creating new materials and learning new techniques to create them. Those were the times when cotton was created, followed by the first man-made fibre and rayon. The industry was only developing, discoveries of both natural and man-made fibres and textiles took place - it was a new ground and only a minority of people were educated well enough to participate in the creation of new materials. Nowadays as textile engineering has developed into a major labour-based industry serving billions of people and making trillions of dollars, the amount of well-trained professionals is still insufficient for a sustainable and always changing sphere. That is why it is necessary to have new specialists and a high degree of specificity in this profession.

Emergence of the discipline
Multiple debates are surrounding the emergence of the discipline of History, one could argue that the discipline emerged from the processes that Herodotus authored his work, The Histories. While there was evidence of historical records predating this period, the methods used by the historian, such as "distinguishing between more or less reliable accounts", were the first recorded time the skill of analysis and evaluation, integral concepts within the methodology of contemporary historical thought. This claim is further substantiated by the term that Munslow defines in his book, What History Is, which is essentially a discipline that utilizes a narrative form of writing to challenge, analyze and recount a series of past events.

On the other hand, however, some would argue that by this point the discipline had not become an actual discipline and instead just a form of narrative literature. Some would argue that the creation of contemporary historical thought only emerged from the works of Leopold Von Ranke in the 1830s through his book Geschichten der Romanischen und Germanischen Völker von 1494 bis 1514 (Histories of the Latin and Teutonic Peoples from 1494 to 1514) where he argues that history should be “collected carefully, examined objectively and put together with critical rigour” ; essentially pioneering the methodology of critical historiography. Historians such as Fritz Stern argue that the creation of the discipline occurred in the "mid-nineteenth century" where "history had ceased to be a branch of literature and had become an academic discipline" through the creation of academic journals such as the Historische Zeitschrift in 1859 and the Revue Historique in 1876 who argued to approach history objectively - as Ranke did. The ‘Historische Zeitschrift’ in particular, emphasizes the significance of objectivity in the study of the discipline with its preface detailing that the “periodical should, above all, be a scientific one”.

Rather than arguing which one is more suited as the emergence of the discipline, I suggest that these two events serve as the introduction of two different concepts within historiography; the emergence of the historical method and the creation of the modern historical thought.

The Paradigm Shift in Historical Approaches in the 20th Century
In 1961, E.H. Carr released What is History? whose arguments were antithetical to the mainstream empiricist historiography that dominated the 19th and early 20th century. As a result, the theory of historiography in Britain, in particular, shifted towards a new equilibrium that pivoted from the preexisting epistemological certainty. Keith Windschuttle, though a harsh critic of Carr's work, argues that What is History was "one of the most influential books written about historiography, and that very few historians working in the English language since the 1960s had not read it".

In response to Carr’s attack on the objectivist historical thought, G.C. Elton released the Practice of History in 1967 in defence of the Victorian style of writing which scathingly criticized how Carr's work embodied "an extraordinarily arrogant attitude both to the past and to the place of the historian studying it”. While some may argue that debate serves to demonstrate the prevailing tensions between the new and radical approach to historiography and the existing pillar of empiricism, it was one of the many examples that delineated a paradigm shift in the approaches of historical thought. R.G. Collingwood, whose works heavily influenced Carr’s book, was one of the many historians who spearheaded the emergence of relativist ideas into the conscious historical thought that appeared in the early 20th century. Carr's radical work served as just one example of how the predominant influence of empirical thought in history had already eroded.

Today, historians have opted to adopt a middle-ground approach that maintains the skeletal form of appropriate analysis and evaluation but not to the extreme extent of extreme empiricism. This development that spanned for a whole century presents the idea that unlike the more quantitative disciplines, there isn't a specific event in history that could be pinpointed as a "turning point" that instantly shifted the approaches and methodology applied in history but rather a gradual development that caused a shift in the then-existing hegemony of logical positivism.

What is sociology?
Sociology is a discipline within the social sciences that studies social behaviour, interaction and culture to understand how they work and finding social explanations to certain phenomena. Sociologists believe that our behaviour is forged by our social interactions, thus, depend on the social groups we interact with.

The emergence of sociology as a discipline
The concern towards understanding society was present way before the term sociology was invented. It caught the interest of some famous philosophers like Aristotle and Plato. Among the people who have studied the interactions between individuals and society in history, we can identify the one considered as the first sociologist: Ibn Khaldun (1332–1406). He research into many topics which are still significant in the present-day such as theories of social conflict, social cohesion, economy and power.

The nineteenth century was a real turning point for the emergence of sociology as a distinct discipline, principally due to the Industrial Revolution. This period of transition to modernity had a huge impact on many aspects of social life such as an upheaval in social classes and the rise of many issues (poverty, misery, disorder, disease, unemployment). Faced to this, theorists found it important to understand social mechanisms to help cure the social crises that were disrupting Europe. Some of the principal actors, mostly philosophers, who participated in the elaboration of sociological theories were Auguste Comte, Herbert Spencer, Emile Durkheim and Karl Marx. Auguste Comte was the one who popularized the word sociology and helped to establish it as a distinct discipline from simple philosophical interest. However, the subject only began to be taught at universities in the 1890s in the United States.

Since the 1980s, sociologists have been interested in how new paradigms --notably globalization and modernity-- are changing the nature of our society, as explained by Ulrich Beck in his book “Risk Society”.

The emergence of Digital Sociology
Since their creation, digital technologies have changed our world. They gradually became integrated into our daily life until they became an integral part of it, as a result, they had an impact on our way of communicating with others. Sociologists began interested in the influence of these new technological objects, which were becoming increasingly important, on our social life from the 1980s when computers began to be democratized. It was the beginning of a new age, the digital age. Over time, digital technologies have gained in importance and this subject of the investigation has become popular in the news. Consequently, the work of sociologies have multiplied. Even if none of them considered themselves as digital sociologists, mostly because the word wasn’t used at the time, their great involvement in research has allowed the emergence of this subdiscipline of sociology. In 2009, the word “digital sociology” appeared for the first time in an American journal and in 2012 the British Sociological Association recognized this new discipline, which led to the creation of the first digital sociology master degree at Goldsmith University in London. Since the discipline has been recognized worldly.

Interdisciplinary work
According to the sociologist Deborah Lupton, “Sociology itself, like any other discipline, is a permeable and dynamic entity.” Indeed, this discipline has adapted to the demand of its time, the emergence of the very recent sub-discipline of digital sociology is a good example. But sociology is not the only one that has undergone changes during this period. There has also been the emergence of other sub-disciplines that were interested in different aspects of the digital revolution such as digital anthropology and media studies. These disciplines came together to try to analyze the impact of this digitalization on society by taking different approaches (economic, social, cultural ...). Thanks to their collaboration, they were able to be more effective in understanding the global issue and, individually, were able to benefit from the knowledge of other disciplines for their own research.

Definition of Neuropsychology
Neuropsychology is the study of the relationship between human psychological behaviour and the brain through neurological observations. It is a branch of psychology that looks at the correlation between the nervous system and cognitive functions including language, memory, and emotion.

Early Beginnings
For ages, the brain functions and its effects on human behaviour have been ignored until Hippocrates believed that the brain is the centre of human behaviour rather than the heart. The philosopher Rene Descartes expanded Hippocrates’ idea, but still lacked scientific evidence. It was Thomas Willis who first applied a scientific and physiological approach to the brain by analyzing specialized structures of the brain. Later, a Neuro-anatomist Franz Joseph Gall stepped further theorizing the relationship between personality and structures of the brain.

The emergence of Neuropsychology as a discipline
Inspired by the study about the impact of the anterior region on the functioning on one's speech, which was carried out by Jean-Baptiste Bouilaud, Paul Broca continued to expand this idea by studying the ways by which speech becomes comprehensible and produced. This led to the deepening of the understanding of the left hemisphere of the brain; eventually making neuropsychology to be respected as a discipline. Later, Sigmund Freud emphasized the overall structure of the brain, instead of specializing in problems with the specific areas when studying some deficits in the brain. Thus, his arguments contributed to the further development of “neuropsychology". In 1944, Ralph Reitan, he laid down the groundwork of the field such as pathognomonic signs, right-left comparisons, patterns of test results, and so on. This made him known as the father of neuropsychology. In the 1960s, neuropsychology was finally and formally accepted as one of the official fields of scientific inquiry in terms of human behaviour and brain functions.


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User:Empereurthepug/sandbox

This chapter will contrast different explanations for racial inequalities in the US. The following set of evidence only concerns the US.

Should we discuss the methodologies used to collect evidence?

Psych and implicit bias is hard to analyse as it relies on people's subjectivity. Need for an open-minded holistic study that succeeds in incorporating both quantitative and qualitative data.

When formulating explanations for continued racial inequality in US education, each discipline draws upon distinct forms of evidence and will therefore draw distinct conclusions. Hence, socio-economists argue social-economic status determines whether a student will be high-achieving; emphasising increased funding and more diverse neighbourhoods as viable solutions. Sociologists agree socio-economic status plays an important role in achievement but revoke the approach of focusing entirely on increased funds as this overlooks evidence which demonstrates family background plays a bigger role in producing the achievement gap. Finally, psychologists argue that internalised biases, both in teachers and students, are central to inequality in education. They then advocate the necessity to educate teachers on implicit bias and its impact on the treatment of students. While sociology bridges with both other disciplines, no study seems to englobe each point of view. This may be due to confirmation bias- researchers tend to focus on what they are looking for- and to the reluctance of academics to validate evidence collected with radically different methods. Typically, socio-economists may not recognize the importance of implicit bias, pointing out the highly qualitative nature of the studies assessing it and their subjectivity.

Although each discipline presents competing claims for the best approach to address the issue of racial inequality in the education system, this chapter argues that those differences can contribute positively to the issue. Evidence from each discipline must be addressed in policy-making, for their contributions bring to light the multidimensional nature of the problem, which requires and interdisciplinary approach to be addressed efficiently. Conversely, efforts to reduce the inequalities can only be partial and ultimately unsuccessful.

Psychology
Various studies confirmed racial discrimination in teachers' behaviors. In general, teachers consistently evaluate black students more negatively than white students. [https://pdf.sciencedirectassets.com/272424/1-s2.0-S0361476X00X00793/1-s2.0-0361476X78900127/main.pdf?X-Amz-Security-Token=IQoJb3JpZ2luX2VjEID%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2FwEaCXVzLWVhc3QtMSJHMEUCIQC%2FbCXiflqbktVXENtY5V1o9Tf4SCZWL%2FehNIZ8pU2WOQIgT5SlUAjWUzMFA4os46pxEaldj4Mlbg02wLWESLj%2BMZ8qtAMIGBADGgwwNTkwMDM1NDY4NjUiDOVibVDTgdN%2FrzYQNCqRA%2BDIEa%2BmyP4SuI%2B0EcySEARaixqP%2Bqt5Yx%2FbO3Xd2L1nHCRPuGBN0LO%2B68Qss1LUyL90LgSRYbmwq%2FjUYz0YcV8UJsTK78oSuoEhl0r%2B47KYZ%2FAp8Q1UrexvbogJyf2%2B3MBnA0I%2BMfJ1klupMpQWSuqOhZBnperrzK9nFwCJy0NxxTTcFrR4JsYUIkoyLLiWxkKzI171JlsrRZ1%2FfDunhPBTsB9UrMgNf3OKC5dEs%2BQxBDYEtvh7UEs1eU8T7Z3266moJy8nO7Q0iIaaTGF5A5UOkv8QArTyff1WRrbtbaDXLIwJTiIp4LNhJRpxhjM%2BToJ5JWMyeqFNXbaKj%2BWBhcXekKwjEZW0z8JB%2Bp2lNd1ZbyHtpwpGEGZnpR0LrQxmhdFZoVlZmlBljPTxggqaxmHXYd3Zwf9Aj2Wch6l3R1LmIKOeoYYoGDNw5kzK38%2BMwhEDyAEpiaH8Voc1mzAZ43TVCATFlHeH%2FJUm9xL%2FRVo6yFM03RR8Wu3XgxX4H4x43KtF%2BKyRmMgOZRkWpbX9txeCMMPqs%2F4FOusBI8kjHnMU1tlMKcEjQiL9Fsw1tsdOfcTkWl7K%2FWL8eU7ZoqU8AWDBL%2FYwVeKyvUeAYs8cRNP69yu1mgCKkXzaUy6d7hmLRVsMNp0mMg1LB%2Fqcy%2BESCOsPnxIlKAd3meTWbY5yjJCKfj0%2FT6HPVYV8JLF9kh%2FRhbysvjacWVy8nfzDzTn6K2WRqYPT3fhNRzXBcFuFFGaN2yRgq0eV6J3Hj9IUyfPBw3E85rMI0erwo1Nj%2F6x92ZjgFBGXeGvoEDJgT5HfebAnAIQfQHA2WjcxziMuNJOx85t%2F%2BTC6TC6Rb25Vx2hPQApIuUqqtA%3D%3D&X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Date=20201206T154709Z&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&X-Amz-Expires=300&X-Amz-Credential=ASIAQ3PHCVTYUOQLNCLE%2F20201206%2Fus-east-1%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Signature=1c71153397d8f8b52c60fd12b3ed4d50bc1e8d018f46ab5190431a4eb7c8156c&hash=77e9bdd31a6455ff4b382ce84e697cdef192af2be1c9d31e30902689e16cfbd8&host=68042c943591013ac2b2430a89b270f6af2c76d8dfd086a07176afe7c76c2c61&pii=0361476X78900127&tid=spdf-50d0dbae-3df5-4772-be92-aa6b0cbfb2a5&sid=0adf83825bbe624c0a4addf2f6870fda3790gxrqb&type=client (A study] found that) They also tend to be less positive for students' academic abilities and give them lower grades when they speak Black English, the negative impact of dialect being stronger for colored students. Moreover, researchers indicated that teachers tend to refer non-white students to special-needs testing, whereas their white peers are more frequently assigned to gifted-and-talented testing. (REF)

This implies that teachers are biased by a negative vision of black students that lowers their expectations and affects the grades they give(REF), which disadvantages African American students.

A study/ studies evidences that black students are more severely disciplined than their white peers (REF), confirming the bias in teachers' actions.

However, the results of these studies do not mean that teachers are badly intentioned and racists : searchers who explored implicit biais suggested that most of these behaviors were unconscious.

Implicit racial associations' stand for all automatic cognitive responses people attach to a certain racial group.(REF?) They are often measured by the Implicit Association Test (IAT), in which subjects are asked to press reaction keys associated with a certain image as quickly as they can. Results showed that 68% of respondents expressed discriminatory views towards black people (REF), which evidenced the tendency of anti-black implicit associations. The study then presumes that since the average American expresses discriminatory implicit assumptions, an average American teacher will be no exempt and hold bias towards Black students.

However, such discriminatory behaviour can be found in the most good-intentioned teachers when caused by implicit bias, the unconscious process of emotions, stereotypes that affect our emotions. NEED FOR BETTER DEF.

The accent has been put on the importance of educating and training teachers on this issue (REF)

Stereotypes' impact on students
An experiment assessed the impact of negative racial stereotypes on black students' performances by taking two groups of students and giving each a test: the first was said to assess individual capacities and the second was introduced as an experiment. African American students had lower scores than white students on the first test, but did as good on the second, which implied that when assessed on their individual capacities, African American students are reminded of the negative stereotypes that weigh on their culture and the fear to confirm these stereotypes by failing gives them additional, penalizing anxiety. Similarly, the searchers observed that colored students had poorer results when asked to record their race on the exam paper, inducing that black students' confidence was undermined by pejorative stereotypes. The racial self esteem issue has also been assessed in much younger children, which suggests that the stereotype-confidence problem comes from prejudices deeply anchored in society.

Teachers
It has been implied that teachers' expectations are biased by the race and dialect of students and that they tend to expect less from non-white students. [https://pdf.sciencedirectassets.com/272424/1-s2.0-S0361476X00X00793/1-s2.0-0361476X78900127/main.pdf?X-Amz-Security-Token=IQoJb3JpZ2luX2VjEID%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2FwEaCXVzLWVhc3QtMSJHMEUCIQC%2FbCXiflqbktVXENtY5V1o9Tf4SCZWL%2FehNIZ8pU2WOQIgT5SlUAjWUzMFA4os46pxEaldj4Mlbg02wLWESLj%2BMZ8qtAMIGBADGgwwNTkwMDM1NDY4NjUiDOVibVDTgdN%2FrzYQNCqRA%2BDIEa%2BmyP4SuI%2B0EcySEARaixqP%2Bqt5Yx%2FbO3Xd2L1nHCRPuGBN0LO%2B68Qss1LUyL90LgSRYbmwq%2FjUYz0YcV8UJsTK78oSuoEhl0r%2B47KYZ%2FAp8Q1UrexvbogJyf2%2B3MBnA0I%2BMfJ1klupMpQWSuqOhZBnperrzK9nFwCJy0NxxTTcFrR4JsYUIkoyLLiWxkKzI171JlsrRZ1%2FfDunhPBTsB9UrMgNf3OKC5dEs%2BQxBDYEtvh7UEs1eU8T7Z3266moJy8nO7Q0iIaaTGF5A5UOkv8QArTyff1WRrbtbaDXLIwJTiIp4LNhJRpxhjM%2BToJ5JWMyeqFNXbaKj%2BWBhcXekKwjEZW0z8JB%2Bp2lNd1ZbyHtpwpGEGZnpR0LrQxmhdFZoVlZmlBljPTxggqaxmHXYd3Zwf9Aj2Wch6l3R1LmIKOeoYYoGDNw5kzK38%2BMwhEDyAEpiaH8Voc1mzAZ43TVCATFlHeH%2FJUm9xL%2FRVo6yFM03RR8Wu3XgxX4H4x43KtF%2BKyRmMgOZRkWpbX9txeCMMPqs%2F4FOusBI8kjHnMU1tlMKcEjQiL9Fsw1tsdOfcTkWl7K%2FWL8eU7ZoqU8AWDBL%2FYwVeKyvUeAYs8cRNP69yu1mgCKkXzaUy6d7hmLRVsMNp0mMg1LB%2Fqcy%2BESCOsPnxIlKAd3meTWbY5yjJCKfj0%2FT6HPVYV8JLF9kh%2FRhbysvjacWVy8nfzDzTn6K2WRqYPT3fhNRzXBcFuFFGaN2yRgq0eV6J3Hj9IUyfPBw3E85rMI0erwo1Nj%2F6x92ZjgFBGXeGvoEDJgT5HfebAnAIQfQHA2WjcxziMuNJOx85t%2F%2BTC6TC6Rb25Vx2hPQApIuUqqtA%3D%3D&X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Date=20201206T154709Z&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&X-Amz-Expires=300&X-Amz-Credential=ASIAQ3PHCVTYUOQLNCLE%2F20201206%2Fus-east-1%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Signature=1c71153397d8f8b52c60fd12b3ed4d50bc1e8d018f46ab5190431a4eb7c8156c&hash=77e9bdd31a6455ff4b382ce84e697cdef192af2be1c9d31e30902689e16cfbd8&host=68042c943591013ac2b2430a89b270f6af2c76d8dfd086a07176afe7c76c2c61&pii=0361476X78900127&tid=spdf-50d0dbae-3df5-4772-be92-aa6b0cbfb2a5&sid=0adf83825bbe624c0a4addf2f6870fda3790gxrqb&type=client A study] found that teachers tend to be less positive in students' academic abilities and give them lower grades when they speak Black English instead of Standard English, the negative impact of dialect being stronger for colored students. The results also showed that teachers consistently evaluated black students more negatively than white students, which would imply that teachers have a negative vision of black students. It has also been proved that teachers discipline black students more severly than their white peers. http://www.kirwaninstitute.osu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/ki-ib-argument-piece03.pdf REF: U.S. Department of Education, Office of Civil Rights, 2016 REF: Wood, Harris, & Howard, 2018 (suspension rates) However, such discriminatory behaviour can be found in the most good-intentioned teachers when caused by implicit bias. Studies then put the accent on the importance of educating and training teachers on this issue

However, evidence lacks when it comes to prove the impact of teachers' behavior on students' performance. One evidence of the impact of teachers on students' performance s is an experiment conducted by James Comer, a child psychologist at Yale, who turned two "bad" schools into top ranked ones by educating staff and parents to create a valuing and optimistic atmosphere. *ref needed*

RACIAL BIAS "Despite their socioeconomic disadvantages as a group, blacks begin school with test scores that are fairly close to the test scores of whites their age. The longer they stay in school, however, the more they fall behind;

" 70 percent of all black students who enroll in four-year colleges drop out at some point, as compared with 45 percent of white"

WHY?

Study that suggests it has a lot to do with income and parents' support https://www-jstor-org.libproxy.ucl.ac.uk/stable/2096145?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents ->put the blame on background

VS social psychologist ... who says the problem also concerns black students who do not face financial problems.

"the importance of the identification process I had experienced: the change in self-definition and in the activities on which I based my self-esteem. They would also miss a simple condition necessary for me to make this identification: treatment as a valued person with good prospects.

I believe that the "something else" at the root of black achievement problems is the failure of American schooling to meet this simple condition for many of its black students. Doing well in school requires a belief that school achievement can be a promising basis of self-esteem, and that belief needs constant reaffirmation even for advantaged students. Tragically, I believe, the lives of black Americans are still haunted by a specter that threatens this belief and the identification that derives from it at every level of schooling."

x believes that black students' performances are affected by the societal devaluation of African Americans' place in society. This view assess

RACIAL DEVALUATION: going over stereotypes and racism.

https://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/unbound/flashbks/blacked/steele.htm

It has been proved that as

While the work of social scientists tend to explain racial inequalities with the impact of institutional and economic disparity, psychologists have shown a different approach which focuses on racial bias and student's reaction to pejorative racial stereotypes.

Sociology
All of the above come from :   Wiggan, G. (2007) ‘Race, School Achievement, and Educational Inequality: Toward a Student-Based Inquiry Perspective’, Review of Educational Research, 77(3), pp. 310–333. doi: 10.3102/003465430303947

"Class and culture" explaination: the impact of social class and culture on scholar achievements. The gap in achievements in school would then start before the student's entry at school.

Stereotypes and concerns on black families create a "culture of poverty" (Frazier, 1966)

Sociologists pointed out the problem of "Ghetto schools"- schools in poorer suburbs carcterized by a high crime rate and low income. S

!!Impact of economic background and family stability. *Are black families poorer in average??

income. parents involvement. class (language, introduction to culture, manners...)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: User:Empereurthepug/sandbox


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User talk:Wkee4ager/A Simple Approach To AppleScript

Move the entire book with it’s subpages when ready
I plan to move the entire book when I’m happy with a draft. According to the help pages this requires assistance from an administrator. Abuluntu (discuss • contribs) 09:37, 19 October 2020 (UTC)


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User talk:Nicola.georgiou/sandbox/Approaches to Knowledge/Seminar group 16/ History

"History of Disciplines: Emergence of Economics and the Reemergence of Political Economy"
The work on "History of Disciplines: Emergence of Economics and the Reemergence of Political Economy" is very interesting to read and it is well written. I would just like to point out that references for the information in the introduction are missing.OwlUwl (discuss • contribs) 09:17, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for the reminder. I have added the references required to back up the information given in introduction part. Lily0212 (discuss • contribs) 18:30, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

"History of Disciplines: Pharmacology and one of its Subdisciplines"
Under the headline "History of Disciplines: Pharmacology and one of its Subdisciplines" there was a part of the first paragraph that I found very engaging. The part was: "Although he presented his work to the Paris Academy in 1809, the actual emergence of pharmacology as a separate scientific discipline was not until 1847, when its first university position was established with the appointment of Rudolf Buchheim as professor of pharmacology at the University of Dorpat in Estonia.", I would love the author to motivate what caused the discipline not to be considered a discipline although scientific work in it was presented to an academic institution. OwlUwl (discuss • contribs) 09:17, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

I did some further research on this and couldn't find much on the topic. However, I did elaborate on ancients uses of pharmacology as well as the modern one. Purpledinosaur17 (discuss • contribs) 09:50, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

"History of Disciplines: The Emergence and Derision of Herbalism"
The contribution on "History of Disciplines: The Emergence and Derision of Herbalism" is also very interesting. I am only wondering about the source of the definiton of a discipline as mentioned in the following quote: "The word discipline is defined as "a branch of knowledge, typically one studied in higher education". OwlUwl (discuss • contribs) 09:17, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

I've added the reference. Thank you for the reminder! (discuss • contribs) 6:21, 4 November 2020 (UTC)

History of Disciplines: Anthropology as a Discipline and the Paradigm Shift of the Anthropological Method
In regards to the first paragraph (hopefully this doesn't seem too pedantic) but since "origins" is written, "traces" should be "trace" instead, or "origins" should be changed to "the origin" as only one origin is discussed. Beans2002 (discuss • contribs) 09:50, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

I have taken the liberality to add an introduction of sorts to our sandbox outlining some of the questions and ideas raised in the Approaches to Knowledge History seminar. I have only begun with a simple definition of a discipline, an example and markers of a discipline. If anyone would like to add discussions on paradigm shifts or who gets to decide the history of a discipline, please feel free to add this. What are everyone's thoughts on adding a introduction? Caprithai (discuss • contribs) 20:02, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

I think having such an introduction paragraph is good. It makes the structure of our sandbox page clearer and could naturally guide readers to the following part where we wrote about lots of different disciplines and topics. I have added the social nature of the concept "discipline" and the paradigm shift thing to it. Lily0212 (discuss • contribs)

History of Disciplines: Medical Ethics
I have added a very small paragraph regarding the 4 main principles of Medical Ethics as these are still considered to be of importance in today's medical practices. MM.Mar 08 (discuss • contribs) 21:29, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for adding this! It roots the article in the modern era which is great! OwlUwl (discuss • contribs) 11:31, 10 November 2020 (UTC)

Social media, an emerging discipline?
There is a recurring issue in the contribution which is your personal opinion; the contribution should be impartial and not personal, also it should be more factual than an opinion. I can try to correct it, but since it is mainly your opinion, it would be better if you would edit the contribution in a way that satisfies you. To my view, the contribution should be more objective.That being said, I like the topic you chose and I do agree with most points you brought up in your contribution! :) JupiterJoyner (discuss • contribs)

History of Disciplines: Political sociology and its interdisciplinarity
I think you took a very interesting subject, and a very important one. I feel like there was a problem with your references. You didn’t put The

History of Disciplines: The Short-Lived Paradigm Shift between Historical and New Musicology
I loved your topic of choice and how well you explained the subject, both thoroughly and concisely. I didn't know how the discussion function worked until now, so I had added this last week. I found the article about how feminism shifted the discipline of musicology. I don't know if you would like to have a look at it or include any parts of it, but here it is if you want to check it out.

Women Remodelling Musicology

Research through a feminist lens could be observed in musicology since the 1970s. However, it was not until the 1990s that feminist thought started to expand the breadth of the discipline. Until then, research on women in music was mostly neglected by the mainstream of the discipline. Starting from the 1990s, feminist musicology challenged the accepted norms and began to reconsider and develop the existing conventions and approaches rooted in musicology.

↑ ↑ ↑ ↑ ↑ ↑ Hi, thank you for the suggestion! :) I checked out the article, it's great! It indeed took a great while for women to be recognized in multiple art fields (Painting, eg. Margaret Keane, hiding behind the persona of her husband to be taken seriously as an artist; and even today, it's still an issue, as this article from Independent states https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/news/writing-under-male-name-makes-you-eight-times-more-likely-get-published-one-female-author-finds-10443351.html; it's concerning) Thank you for point the study out for me! Great read! :) JupiterJoyner (discuss • contribs)

Glad you liked it. Yes, it took a great while and yes, we're still not there yet. I also recommend looking into the life of Antonia Brico, the first female conductor. They also made a movie about it recently, called "The Conductor."


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Free Knowledge Culture Calendar/April 11

Today in 2012 the JavaScript web application server framework Meteor was launched.


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Free Knowledge Culture Calendar/October 21

Today in 2010 the first official release of OpenStack was made. This large infrastructure project is being developed by several companies to meet a common need.


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Free Knowledge Culture Calendar/November 14

 Today in 2017 Firefox version 57 was released, the first version with major Rust components from the experimental Servo project enabled. After research into generic solutions for memory and data-race safety in the academic world, some of the solutions were finally transferred to the front line of systems programming by integrating them into a popular, Internet-exposed piece of software.


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Free Knowledge Culture Calendar/May 25

Today in 2014 was the first release of the encrypting communication applications RedPhone and TextSecure, which were later merged into Signal. Their groundbreaking end-to-end encryption protocol set a new standard and marked the state of the art for years and was integrated into WhatsApp, among others.

title: Free Knowledge Culture Calendar/May 25


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Free Knowledge Culture Calendar/October 15

Today in 1996 Netscape introduced the first server-side JavaScript implementation LiveWire, foreshadowing a “JavaScript everywhere” future in a great return of this kind of technology: After the similar Node.js arrived in 2009, with significantly improved performance by leveraging newer just-in-time compilation, JavaScript went on to become the most widely used programming language of all time. The Node Package Manager lists more software modules than any other software repository before.


text: User:MM.Mar 08/sandbox

title: User:MM.Mar 08/sandbox


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User:LGreg/sandbox/Approaches to Knowledge (LG seminar 2020/21)/Seminar 12/Evidence

Evidence in Literary Analysis
Literary criticism is the analysis of works of literature, specific or not, including both their interpretation and evaluation. This may include analysis of the work itself, the author's biography, and comparison to other pieces, although different schools of criticism exclude these. The nature of evidence in this field is thus disputed.

Formalism
Formalism is an approach that was expressed in movements such as New Criticism. It seeks to make literary analysis more precise and scientific. It rejects the circumstances of the author's life, reader's response and the historical context as evidence, and considers the work on its own merits. It focuses on the language, plot, characters, et cetera of the work as the primary evidence required to interpret it. Close reading, a practice of analysing the meaning of every word in a passage, is often employed. The idea that the precise meaning of every word and the interactions of those meanings constitute important evidence meant that paraphrasing is frowned upon. To find evidence in close reading, one can consider some key factors. If the inferred meanings are consistent throughout the work, and symbolic objects appear often, it is likely they are tied into the theme. The context of these elements is also important, and by making observations and logical conclusions from this evidence, we can arrive at a conclusion.

Structuralism
Structuralism takes the opposite approach. It is a technique of literary analysis that examines works of literature from the perspective of similarities and differences between them. This theory works to reduce literature to universal rules. An understanding of literature derives, in this framework, from using the recurring structures and patterns across different works as evidence.

Contextual Analysis
Contextual analysis seeks to interpret a work of literature in conjunction with understanding the author's biography, the political and social factors at the time that may have influenced the piece (historical context) and other literature at the time. In this framework, a literary work divorced from its context is void of meaning. Thus, context the work was created in provides important evidence. An author's notes, or events in their life, for instance, can be evidence for their intentions writing the piece. However, biographical evidence can be criticised as coincidental, and attempts to contextualise a work in history often leads to cherry-picking evidence to construct a narrative around the piece. No evidence in historical analysis can be considered truly conclusive, however useful it may be.

All these approaches to evidence in literary analysis offer valuable perspectives. It is impossible to judge their accuracy due to the subjective nature of the material, however they could be effectively employed in tandem with each other. While New Criticism didn't endure, close reading is a technique still popular today. In modern analysis it is common to use these techniques to look at works of literature from specific angles, for example feminist theory.

Definition
Evidence-based medicine is a component of the discipline of medicine. It is defined as “the conscientious, explicit, and judicious use of current best evidence in making decisions about the care of individual patients“ Evidence-based practice is a way to take the best decision possible when sometimes no correct choice really exist.

But what kinds of evidence are used ?

The two different kinds of evidence
Firstly, to take a decision, a clinical question needs to be formulated. Then, there are two types of evidence which are both necessary to examine the choices available : individual clinical expertise and the best available external evidence

Individual clinical expertise
It embraces all the evidences that are directly linked with the medical team and its approach to the case. Thus, it is subjective and depends on many factors such as the doctors’ previous experiences, their background… These kinds of evidence obviously apply to a particular patient and the specific case. Nevertheless, because of their individuality, those evidences might lack reliability and quality. That is why Evidence Based Medicine is taught in medical degrees to make sure the medical team benefits from the best training possible.

Best external advice
They are based on previous research made on several different subjects, based on some surveys, tests and diagnosis so they are more general. Thus, they can be quantitative evidences based on facts, stats and tests. They are evolving and always re-evaluated every time a new case occurs to take it into account. For example, one of of those evidences can be built on the probability that a medical treatment works when tried on a group of subjects in comparison to a control group treated by a placebo. Those evidences can be ranked depending on their level of reliability. The Centre of Evidence Based Medicine (CBEM) developed its own ranking which you can found here.

The use of those evidences
Those evidences, provided by the medical team, are supposed to give the patient the ability to take part in the process of decision’s taking. Obviously, they need to be critically examined by the doctors before in order to make sure of their reliability. Some of the keys skills necessary to do so are listed in Paul DeHart Hurd’s article “Scientific Literacy : new minds for a changing world.“.

Verification of Evidence
Medicine’s commitment to evidence based practice is well-established, as reflected by independent organizations that review the research that influences EBP. Cochrane is an example of this, because it aims to be as transparent as possible while collecting and organizing as much information as possible, using a global perspective. It also allows for the requesting of specific reviews, allowing healthcare professionals to get involved in the evidence they use to make clinical decisions, and to separately verify it on an individual patient level as well as in a research setting.

What is Evidence-Based Practices?
According to the World Health Organization 1 in 4 people will suffer from mental health issues at some point during their lifetime. Mental disorders should be properly diagnosed and treated since they are the main cause of suicides. Therefore, Evidence-Based Practice (EBP) is being used more widely and commonly to ensure a proper treatment.

Evidence-Based Practice is the act of crossing 4 major characteristics: the patient’s expectations and ethics, the setting – time and space – of the interaction, the top research evidence (which if affected by the setting), and finally clinical results from experts on the matter..

Advantages of EBPs
There are several advantages to EBPs. The most prominent would be the fact that the clinician’s subjective views on treatment isn’t taken into consideration. Instead, the health professional will make use of a broad inventory of research by psychologists and biologists making it more varied. The in-depth research made from wide-ranging clinical trials is implemented to create a plan that can be applicable generally. In other words, the plans have specific steps and instructions for health professional to use.

Disadvantages of EBPs
The standardization of treatment plans for mental illness may be easier to provide to clinicians, however, it doesn’t take into consideration the fact that mental disorders vary from one individual to another. There is no proven fact that EBPs have a positive long-term effect on the patient, nor is there a personal experience for the patient. Traditional therapy is more based on the interaction between therapist and patient. It also allows the therapist to implement their years of education, knowledge and training to help the individual.

Conclusion
There is therefore no perfect treatment for mental illnesses, however combining traditional therapy and EBPs seems as though the patient could get the best of both treatment plans to ensure a recovery from mental illnesses.

How Evidence in Ageing
We often define and judge ageing qualitatively, socially: based on experiences one goes through, how mature they seem or even appearance. Biology, as a science, naturally uses more quantitative data than qualitative, and as ageing covers so many aspects, we can use both Sociology and Biology measure age in order to suit people's needs.

Qualitative Methods- Sociology
There are many sociology theories around ageing. On example is the Continuity theory which hypothesises that the older one becomes, the more they would maintain their traditions and life experiences in their day to day life despite the society around them changing. This quantitative evidence is based on how the elderly perceive themselves. However, the main criticism towards this theory as a way of evaluating ageing is that it doesn't weigh up any impact of the social institutions they are surrounded in and whether that affects how they age as well as their past - would they change the elderly's habits? The sociology evidence of ageing is never fully accepted and is always changing as society changes. Therefore, one may use the scientific evidence behind ageing as well to predict any illnesses etc.

Quantitative Methods- Biology
Quantitatively, there is a stark difference between the maximum number of divisions it takes for adult and baby skin cells to go under before it can divide no further. For example, it can take a baby cell to divide up to 80-90 times, adults take up to 50 times and only 20 for mature cells in the elderly. Therefore, as people mature, their cells divide less and less. This then significantly impacts the rate of repair one can do (including the immune system). Even though it had quantitatively identified the number of divisions, Davis didn't specify the difference between an adult and elderly cell is.

Another way of analysing ageing quantitatively is the shortening of telomeres. Telomeres are repeated units on the end of chromosomes that break off every time a cell divides. This prevents the vital parts of DNA from degrading instead. Therefore the more the cell divides, the shorter the telomeres become. Davis also touched on this subject in his book "The Beautiful Cure" too. The length (compared to at birth) would have already shortened by 1/2 by midlife and 3/4 by 65. It can even be used as a "tally" to estimate the number of divisions the cells had gone through and would be prone to more diseases.

Conclusion- Strengths and Limitations
Therefore, qualitative data is helpful in understanding how people age mentally in a social but personal context and the subjective nature of biological qualitative methods delves deeper into physical interactions and processes. Despite the differences, they should both be used to evaluate ageing to be able to best accommodate an ageing population.

What is Art History
The discipline of art history deals with the analysis of artworks, taking into account the context in which they were created – their historic background, who they were made by and the reactions they provoked. Analysing art in this way can give us a better insight into people’s mentality at that specific time.

Vermeer as an example
An example for a question that has been raised in the field of art history is whether Johannes Vermeer, a Dutch painter who lived in the 17th century, used a “camera obscura”, a primitive version of a projector, as an aid for painting. Even though it is a historical fact that this type of device was already invented and known in the art world in Vermeer’s lifetime, there is no specific reference that states that he knew about or used it, so the search for evidence answering this question was carried out in different ways. Some have replicated sceneries and objects in his paintings and looked at them through a camera obscura - in an attempt to find similarities between what they saw and Vermeer’s paintings. Others have investigated Vermeer’s relationships to people who might have taught him about the device, looking into written records of the time that substantiate these relationships.

Technology as a source of evidence
Further approaches to better understand artists’ work methods have been made through scientific applications. Nowadays, it is possible to use modern technology to examine the texture, material and composition of artworks. This can be vital to explain their historic circumstances. One of those applications is the x-ray technique. X-rays can uncover layers of paint underlying a finished painting, sometimes revealing completely different images, which in turn could tell us more about an artist’s initial motives. X-rays are also used to “authenticate” paintings by examining the substances that the paint is made of. In some cases, this indicates when they were created, as we can match the pigments identified by x-ray to our knowledge of when certain pigments first occurred. If a pigment is detectable in a painting supposedly made at a time before it was even obtainable, it is possible to determine whether it has been wrongly classified in the historic timeline. The x-ray technique also helps to make out whether an artwork has been changed over time, which can again be crucial to the investigation of an artwork’s authenticity.

However, we must not forget that evidence in the history of art is built on what people and critics say about a work of art which might not describe it in the way the artist had intended it to appear. Indeed, sometimes it is better to look critically at historians' research because they base it on facts but give their opinion and draw conclusions without evidence.

Recent Societal Shift
As education becomes more accessible across the world, the practice of finishing a secondary education and attaining a stable income before starting a family has become more common, especially in developed nations. Coupled with an average global increase of a marriage age across both males and females, younger pregnancies have become less desirable, but in many cases, policies and resources do not reflect this.

Use of Available Data
In the United States, states control what public schools must teach in regards to sexual education. While some require a science-based curriculum, others require none at all, or allow an abstinence-only approach. However, studies have shown that the abstinence-only education has links to increased rates of teen pregnancy and STI’s among adolescents. Various programs such as Colorado’s Family Planning Initiative, which offered free Long-Acting Reversible Contraception for women ages 15 and up, looked at older data that shows links between access to a birth control pill and lower rates of childbirth among young women in the 1970’s and 80’s. In this case, this evidence was used to posit a societal shift, and then to test it in the wider population, successfully decreasing unwanted births in a 12-mile radius of the clinic by an estimated 6,800 from 2009-2015. This was a highly effective use of quantitative evidence, and likely what the authors were looking to accomplish: improving the lives of people through programs implemented because of the findings from their research. However, in stark contrast, the evidence of lower rates of pregnancy and STI transmission, and stable rates of sexual activity, when provided access to education and/or birth control has been routinely ignored within sexual education curriculums. Though little data exists to support the claim that contraceptive access increases rates of adolescent sexual activity, it is often reiterated within conservative policies and arguments, demonstrating the limits of evidence when those who write the rules refuse to acknowledge it, and even actively reject it.

Cultural Bias Versus Evidence
While the above example was America-centric, sexual health remains a taboo across the world. In areas such as Sub-Saharan Africa, there remains a need for more education and access to contraception due to restricted healthcare and higher rates of poverty. According to a 2019 report by the Forum for African Women Educationalists and the African Population and Health Center, even when faced with the challenge of socio-cultural bias, several efforts in East Africa to change this through digital media were successful. Improved pregnancy prevention and understanding of non-consensual sexual activity occurred following the dissemination of education on these topics. The adoptions of these policies, despite cultural barriers, came after research demonstrated improved outcomes in other communities with this information, in contrast to parts of the US that remain slower than less-developed areas to adopt evidence-based approaches to protect the adolescent population. Outdated governmental bias seems to disregard that fact that 80% of the American population actually support comprehensive sexual education, which, paradoxically, is an attack against evidence that shows support of other evidence.

What is sociology?
Sociology is part of social sciences and has a purpose of understanding the relationships between humans and the understanding they have on the society they live in. It also includes the studying of human societies and their challenges and movements throughout the centuries.

The beginning of sociology is marked, just like economics, at the beginning of the 19th century with the development of the enlightenment ideas that put humans at the centre of the thinking system.

Quantitative thinking in sociology
We do social research to understand how humans interact with each other in the world today but also because of the need to understand how people feel about the world they live in.

It's very hard to be partial in sociology and sociology research because the study is around the human thinking and therefore can easily be biased.

The research in sociology can be divided into the primary and secondary data and into the qualitative and quantitative data. The quantitative data takes the form of numbers and statistics. The qualitative data is the information gathered during interviews or transcripts. The primary data is the work that researchers do around a subject, while using surveys, interviews, statistics and the secondary data is the data made by the government mainly, it uses statistics and quantitative data.

The “interview method” of researching evidence is in itself categorizable. Depending on the aim of an interview, these categories might influence the way in which the qualitative data that is being collected is perceived. This should be kept in mind when investigating qualitative evidence in sociology, as it could affect the conclusion drawn from it.

The evolution of scientific data and how we use it changed with time. Indeed, before the Second World War, the qualitative data and theories were widely used, trusted and were found legitimate to prove a point. After the Second World War, with the development of quantitative data and statistics, it became the most predominant way of understanding knowledge in sociology.

Therefore, evidence in sociology is hard do grasp as it is using quantitative data to understand knowledge that cannot always be fully understood using numbers. It's harder to develop evidence in sociology than in other scientific disciplines because there are no rules to understand the data that is being recovered. According to Stanley Lieberson in his review Einstein, Renoir and Greeley: Some Thoughts about evidence in sociology in 1992, the real difficulty is not to produce data but to use it in a way that will prove a sociological theory the way we want.

Evidence in criminology
Criminology is a discipline that concerns itself with the nature, causations and implications of crime and criminal conduct. Quantitative methods are well respected in criminology. However, qualitative forms of evidence are also used to complement quantitative data and together provide a more comprehensive image of crime. Often, results are better when forms of evidence are combined.

Quantitative vs qualitative evidence
Traditional criminology initially focused on empirical, quantitative methods of research, however, the discipline has evolved to further include qualitative evidence. In contemporary criminology quantitative evidence, often statistics, is used to draw conclusions about for example relations between social and economic factors and rates of crime or the effectivity of criminal justice systems. This evidence can then be used in policymaking, for example a criminological study into the correlation between different kinds of sentencing and recidivism (repeat offending), based on statistics, can assist policymakers in evaluating the system in place.

Inspired by sociology and ethnography, qualitative evidence within criminology includes data collected through participant observation and personal testimonies that is analysed to understand more about the social constructs, reactions and implications of crime. Criminologist Richard Tewksbury argues that “The numerous advantages of qualitative methods provide a depth of understanding of crime, criminals and justice system operations and processing that far exceeds that offered by detached, statistical analyses.”. Feminist criminologists prefer methods of collecting qualitative data as it allows them to highlight the voice of women as the traditionally oppressed sex.

Blurring the lines between qualitative and quantitative approaches
It is difficult to conduct qualitative research in criminology without using any type of quantitative evidence, and vice versa, and the validity of a study can increase when both types of evidence are used. Qualitative evidence in criminology can provide insight to the social structures surrounding crime and complement quantitative evidence in helpful ways, filling in where quantitative evidence fails to paint a holistic picture. Criminology is just one example of a discipline that is not tied to one specific form of evidence but where a combination of quantitative and qualitative data can prove more useful than any isolated approach.

Definition & Origins
Climate Change is defined by "a change in the pattern of weather, and related changes in oceans, land surfaces and ice sheets, occurring over time scales of decades or longer". The study of climatology goes way back in history. Indeed the Byzantine historian Procopius was one of the first to report about disturbing changes in climate in his writings: "History of The Wars". . While narrating the war with the Vandals in 535-536, Procopius describes the sun as « weak » and « without brightness ». Later on, scientists such as the dendrochronologist Mike Baillie of Queen's University Belfast, have shown evidence that the weather was disturbed in the 535-536 period of time. By analyzing tree trunks dated to the year 536, they found out that the trees had faced an unusually low growth during those years.

How can we prove Climate Change is real?
Climate change is an important world issue in our modern context. Increased production of greenhouse gases has led to rising temperatures across the globe, melting sea ices, and changes in weather. According to NASA atmospheric CO2 concentration has increased by 47% since the beginning of the industrial revolution,. Despite these facts, the debate on climate change, and the role of humans in accelerating it, is a heated one.

As surprising as it sounds, Climate Change needs to be proven. However, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change claims that "Scientific evidence for warming of the climate system is unequivocal." Quantitative evidence is largely used while trying to prove and explain the Climate Change phenomena, on the other hand, qualitative evidence would be hard to use on this subject.

Pieces of evidence to prove Climate Change is real are numerous. The most common and effective ones are global temperature rising, the warming ocean, the shrinking ice sheets, the glacial retreat, the decreasing snow cover, the sea level rise, the declining Arctic sea ice, extreme events (such as the increasing numbers of intense rainfall events) or the constant ocean acidification.

Climate Change in Politics
As Climate Change is a crucial topic as it will deeply affect future generations, it is important that the subject is treated accordingly, with proofs and pieces of evidence in Politics. However, it has not always been the case. For example, at the World Economic Forum in Davos held in 2020, the 45th president of the United States, Donald Trump, made a speech claiming that Climate Change was "mythical", "nonexistent", or "an expensive hoax", when Climate Change has been scientifically proven. . In his speech at Davos, he said "The United States has among the cleanest air and drinking water on Earth." Donald Trump has always praised his administration's policies regarding air and water quality in the United States. In fact, in 2020, the air quality in the US is ranked as the 10th best in the world, while drinking water in the US is at the top of the rankings along with countries including the UK, Canada, and Finland. Climate change denialism is most popular amongst white conservative men, which make up Trump's main voter demographic. It is likely his denialism both caters to and influences his supporters. In conclusion, it is important for politicians to have concrete evidence of what they claim, as they are the leaders of our world and will most probably participate in the decisions which will determine the future of our planet Earth.

What is economics
Economics is a social science that assesses the distribution and consumption of wealth and how scarce resources are allocated. As a social science, it is important for economists to use both qualitative and quantitative data to analyse issues and use as evidence when arriving at conclusions. Models are a primary form of evidence in economics, used for analysing situations and providing explanations for what happens when certain events change in the economy.

Issues with evidence in economic theory
A primary issue that we encounter with evidence in economic theory, is that much of economics is based on predicting what humans will do, therefore assuming universal human nature and that people are rational, which in reality is often untrue. However empirical evidence is very important to economists and many value statistical methods (more quantitative evidence) over qualitative evidence which often comes in the form of examples from the past or anecdotes. An example of issues with evidence in economic theory not predicting outcomes correctly is when Irving Fisher said “Stock prices have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau (…) I expect to see the stock market a good deal higher within a few months," just before the stock market crashed.

Behavioral approach
This, however, is a subject to change, currently many economists are willing to adapt the behavioral approach. Behavioral economics is the branch of economics that emerged relatively recently - one of its most notable works were these of Daniel Kahneman (which started appearing only from 1970s onwards ). Its attitude towards evidence is much more qualitative, as behavioral economics itself is based on very interdisciplinary foundations - other social sciences, psychology and cognitive sciences were vital factors in its emergence.

Behavioral Economics is thus more willing to acknowledge paradoxes of human thinking, in contrast to the classical theory of economics and its advocates which derived the concept of Homo economicus - the model of an economic agent that is not only rational, but also has infinite computational capacities, what is of course far from truth when compared to actual human beings. Reasoning in behavioral economics is based mostly on microeconomics-scale experiments and contributions of human sciences - this kind of approach enables to treat subjects as actual human beings with all of their biases and emotions.


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Linguistics in the Ancient World
One of the first records of descriptive linguistics, the systematic study of the grammar of a language, is the treatise on Sanskrit grammar written by the Indian scholar Panini in 600 BC. Back then, the study of language had the purpose of properly preserving religious texts, especially the Vedic hymns (/8/). Language was also studied in ancient Greece, though usually in the context of rhetoric and philosophy, e.g. Plato explored the nature of language in his work Cratylus. The preservation of Greek was the reason for which the Alexandrians further investigated the Greek grammar around 100 BC. There, Dionysus Thrax wrote his The Art of Grammar, which explains parts of Greek grammar. The Romans continued using descriptive linguistics to preserve their language following the Greek tradition. When it came to analysing texts, the Greeks and Romans confined themselves to literary texts and not everyday speech. In the 17th century, there was a change in this attitude: Descriptive linguists from Port-Royal wanted to explore the idea of universal grammar, a theory suggesting that there are universal grammatical relations that apply to all human languages (/6/), and they argued that grammar should follow the rules of spoken language.

The Rediscovering of Sanskrit
A paradigm shift in the study of language occurred in 1786, when Sir William Jones started comparing Sanskrit with many European languages (/8/): It was found that there are many similarities among European, Indian and Persian languages (/7/). A new theory of a proto-language, Proto-Indo-European, from which many current languages stem, was formed (/8/). Thus, linguistics went from only analysing particular languages to comparing different languages. This went hand in hand with developing universal linguistic techniques for analysing many languages instead of having language-specific systems of descriptive linguistics (/8/).

Structural Linguistics
In the 1920s, the field of structural linguistics emerged, with Ferdinand de Saussure as its founder, which focused on the underlying structures within languages instead of only considering individual linguistic elements (/8/). As a result, the structures of languages were much better understood and it became apparent that all languages have very similar underlying structures (/8/). From this, Noam Chomsky’s claim that the human brain is built in a way that only allows certain grammatical structures arose, which is one of the most controversial topics in modern linguistics (/8/). This claim is the basis for the theory of generative and transformational grammar (/9/), which echoes the claim of the linguists from Port-Royal that there are universal grammatical rules from which all languages are derived.

Recent Developments
Linguistics has been strongly influenced by developments in other disciplines and vice versa. Linguistics had a significant impact on the development of effective programming languages, e.g. Noam Chomsky’s work on the rules of natural languages was applied to programming languages (/11/). Thus, not only human languages are being analyzed now but the knowledge of the structure of human languages is being applied to artificial languages. The advances in computer technology have allowed for the field of computational linguistics to form. It is concerned with giving computers the ability to process human language and interact with it (/10/). Natural language processing is one method used in this subfield of linguistics. Moreover, developments in neuroscience are allowing linguists to see how language is connected with neurological processes in a field called neurolinguistics (/12/).

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