text stringlengths 11 1.65k | source stringlengths 38 44 |
|---|---|
Sociobiology Chomsky argued that human beings are biological organisms and ought to be studied as such, with his criticism of the "blank slate" doctrine in the social sciences (which would inspire a great deal of Steven Pinker's and others' work in evolutionary psychology), in his 1975 "Reflections on Language". Chomsky further hinted at the possible reconciliation of his anarchist political views and sociobiology in a discussion of Peter Kropotkin's "", which focused more on altruism than aggression, suggesting that anarchist societies were feasible because of an innate human tendency to cooperate. Wilson has claimed that he had never meant to imply what "ought" to be, only what "is" the case. However, some critics have argued that the language of sociobiology readily slips from "is" to "ought", an instance of the naturalistic fallacy. Pinker has argued that opposition to stances considered anti-social, such as ethnic nepotism, is based on moral assumptions, meaning that such opposition is not falsifiable by scientific advances. The history of this debate, and others related to it, are covered in detail by , , and . | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27919 |
Statistical mechanics is one of the pillars of modern physics. It is necessary for the fundamental study of any physical system that has many degrees of freedom. The approach is based on statistical methods, probability theory and the microscopic physical laws. It can be used to explain the thermodynamic behaviour of large systems. This branch of statistical mechanics, which treats and extends classical thermodynamics, is known as statistical thermodynamics or equilibrium statistical mechanics. describes how macroscopic observations (such as temperature and pressure) are related to microscopic parameters that fluctuate around an average. It connects thermodynamic quantities (such as heat capacity) to microscopic behavior, whereas, in classical thermodynamics, the only available option would be to measure and tabulate such quantities for various materials. can also be used to study systems that are out of equilibrium. An important subbranch known as non-equilibrium statistical mechanics (sometimes called statistical dynamics) deals with the issue of microscopically modelling the speed of irreversible processes that are driven by imbalances. Examples of such processes include chemical reactions or flows of particles and heat. The fluctuation–dissipation theorem is the basic knowledge obtained from applying non-equilibrium statistical mechanics to study the simplest non-equilibrium situation of a steady state current flow in a system of many particles | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=28481 |
Statistical mechanics In physics, two types of mechanics are usually examined: classical mechanics and quantum mechanics. For both types of mechanics, the standard mathematical approach is to consider two concepts: Using these two concepts, the state at any other time, past or future, can in principle be calculated. There is however a disconnection between these laws and everyday life experiences, as we do not find it necessary (nor even theoretically possible) to know exactly at a microscopic level the simultaneous positions and velocities of each molecule while carrying out processes at the human scale (for example, when performing a chemical reaction). fills this disconnection between the laws of mechanics and the practical experience of incomplete knowledge, by adding some uncertainty about which state the system is in. Whereas ordinary mechanics only considers the behaviour of a single state, statistical mechanics introduces the statistical ensemble, which is a large collection of virtual, independent copies of the system in various states. The statistical ensemble is a probability distribution over all possible states of the system. In classical statistical mechanics, the ensemble is a probability distribution over phase points (as opposed to a single phase point in ordinary mechanics), usually represented as a distribution in a phase space with canonical coordinates. In quantum statistical mechanics, the ensemble is a probability distribution over pure states, and can be compactly summarized as a density matrix | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=28481 |
Statistical mechanics As is usual for probabilities, the ensemble can be interpreted in different ways: These two meanings are equivalent for many purposes, and will be used interchangeably in this article. However the probability is interpreted, each state in the ensemble evolves over time according to the equation of motion. Thus, the ensemble itself (the probability distribution over states) also evolves, as the virtual systems in the ensemble continually leave one state and enter another. The ensemble evolution is given by the Liouville equation (classical mechanics) or the von Neumann equation (quantum mechanics). These equations are simply derived by the application of the mechanical equation of motion separately to each virtual system contained in the ensemble, with the probability of the virtual system being conserved over time as it evolves from state to state. One special class of ensemble is those ensembles that do not evolve over time. These ensembles are known as "equilibrium ensembles" and their condition is known as "statistical equilibrium". Statistical equilibrium occurs if, for each state in the ensemble, the ensemble also contains all of its future and past states with probabilities equal to the probability of being in that state. The study of equilibrium ensembles of isolated systems is the focus of statistical thermodynamics. Non-equilibrium statistical mechanics addresses the more general case of ensembles that change over time, and/or ensembles of non-isolated systems | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=28481 |
Statistical mechanics The primary goal of statistical thermodynamics (also known as equilibrium statistical mechanics) is to derive the classical thermodynamics of materials in terms of the properties of their constituent particles and the interactions between them. In other words, statistical thermodynamics provides a connection between the macroscopic properties of materials in thermodynamic equilibrium, and the microscopic behaviours and motions occurring inside the material. Whereas statistical mechanics proper involves dynamics, here the attention is focussed on "statistical equilibrium" (steady state). Statistical equilibrium does not mean that the particles have stopped moving (mechanical equilibrium), rather, only that the ensemble is not evolving. A sufficient (but not necessary) condition for statistical equilibrium with an isolated system is that the probability distribution is a function only of conserved properties (total energy, total particle numbers, etc.). There are many different equilibrium ensembles that can be considered, and only some of them correspond to thermodynamics. Additional postulates are necessary to motivate why the ensemble for a given system should have one form or another. A common approach found in many textbooks is to take the "equal a priori probability postulate". This postulate states that The equal a priori probability postulate therefore provides a motivation for the microcanonical ensemble described below | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=28481 |
Statistical mechanics There are various arguments in favour of the equal a priori probability postulate: Other fundamental postulates for statistical mechanics have also been proposed. There are three equilibrium ensembles with a simple form that can be defined for any isolated system bounded inside a finite volume. These are the most often discussed ensembles in statistical thermodynamics. In the macroscopic limit (defined below) they all correspond to classical thermodynamics. For systems containing many particles (the thermodynamic limit), all three of the ensembles listed above tend to give identical behaviour. It is then simply a matter of mathematical convenience which ensemble is used. The Gibbs theorem about equivalence of ensembles was developed into the theory of concentration of measure phenomenon, which has applications in many areas of science, from functional analysis to methods of artificial intelligence and big data technology. Important cases where the thermodynamic ensembles "do not" give identical results include: In these cases the correct thermodynamic ensemble must be chosen as there are observable differences between these ensembles not just in the size of fluctuations, but also in average quantities such as the distribution of particles. The correct ensemble is that which corresponds to the way the system has been prepared and characterized—in other words, the ensemble that reflects the knowledge about that system | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=28481 |
Statistical mechanics Once the characteristic state function for an ensemble has been calculated for a given system, that system is 'solved' (macroscopic observables can be extracted from the characteristic state function). Calculating the characteristic state function of a thermodynamic ensemble is not necessarily a simple task, however, since it involves considering every possible state of the system. While some hypothetical systems have been exactly solved, the most general (and realistic) case is too complex for an exact solution. Various approaches exist to approximate the true ensemble and allow calculation of average quantities. There are some cases which allow exact solutions. One approximate approach that is particularly well suited to computers is the Monte Carlo method, which examines just a few of the possible states of the system, with the states chosen randomly (with a fair weight). As long as these states form a representative sample of the whole set of states of the system, the approximate characteristic function is obtained. As more and more random samples are included, the errors are reduced to an arbitrarily low level. There are many physical phenomena of interest that involve quasi-thermodynamic processes out of equilibrium, for example: All of these processes occur over time with characteristic rates, and these rates are of importance for engineering. The field of non-equilibrium statistical mechanics is concerned with understanding these non-equilibrium processes at the microscopic level | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=28481 |
Statistical mechanics (Statistical thermodynamics can only be used to calculate the final result, after the external imbalances have been removed and the ensemble has settled back down to equilibrium.) In principle, non-equilibrium statistical mechanics could be mathematically exact: ensembles for an isolated system evolve over time according to deterministic equations such as Liouville's equation or its quantum equivalent, the von Neumann equation. These equations are the result of applying the mechanical equations of motion independently to each state in the ensemble. Unfortunately, these ensemble evolution equations inherit much of the complexity of the underlying mechanical motion, and so exact solutions are very difficult to obtain. Moreover, the ensemble evolution equations are fully reversible and do not destroy information (the ensemble's Gibbs entropy is preserved). In order to make headway in modelling irreversible processes, it is necessary to consider additional factors besides probability and reversible mechanics. Non-equilibrium mechanics is therefore an active area of theoretical research as the range of validity of these additional assumptions continues to be explored. A few approaches are described in the following subsections. One approach to non-equilibrium statistical mechanics is to incorporate stochastic (random) behaviour into the system. Stochastic behaviour destroys information contained in the ensemble | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=28481 |
Statistical mechanics While this is technically inaccurate (aside from hypothetical situations involving black holes, a system cannot in itself cause loss of information), the randomness is added to reflect that information of interest becomes converted over time into subtle correlations within the system, or to correlations between the system and environment. These correlations appear as chaotic or pseudorandom influences on the variables of interest. By replacing these correlations with randomness proper, the calculations can be made much easier. Another important class of non-equilibrium statistical mechanical models deals with systems that are only very slightly perturbed from equilibrium. With very small perturbations, the response can be analysed in linear response theory. A remarkable result, as formalized by the fluctuation-dissipation theorem, is that the response of a system when near equilibrium is precisely related to the fluctuations that occur when the system is in total equilibrium. Essentially, a system that is slightly away from equilibrium—whether put there by external forces or by fluctuations—relaxes towards equilibrium in the same way, since the system cannot tell the difference or "know" how it came to be away from equilibrium. This provides an indirect avenue for obtaining numbers such as ohmic conductivity and thermal conductivity by extracting results from equilibrium statistical mechanics | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=28481 |
Statistical mechanics Since equilibrium statistical mechanics is mathematically well defined and (in some cases) more amenable for calculations, the fluctuation-dissipation connection can be a convenient shortcut for calculations in near-equilibrium statistical mechanics. A few of the theoretical tools used to make this connection include: An advanced approach uses a combination of stochastic methods and linear response theory. As an example, one approach to compute quantum coherence effects (weak localization, conductance fluctuations) in the conductance of an electronic system is the use of the Green-Kubo relations, with the inclusion of stochastic dephasing by interactions between various electrons by use of the Keldysh method. The ensemble formalism also can be used to analyze general mechanical systems with uncertainty in knowledge about the state of a system. Ensembles are also used in: In 1738, Swiss physicist and mathematician Daniel Bernoulli published "Hydrodynamica" which laid the basis for the kinetic theory of gases. In this work, Bernoulli posited the argument, still used to this day, that gases consist of great numbers of molecules moving in all directions, that their impact on a surface causes the gas pressure that we feel, and that what we experience as heat is simply the kinetic energy of their motion | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=28481 |
Statistical mechanics In 1859, after reading a paper on the diffusion of molecules by Rudolf Clausius, Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell formulated the Maxwell distribution of molecular velocities, which gave the proportion of molecules having a certain velocity in a specific range. This was the first-ever statistical law in physics. Maxwell also gave the first mechanical argument that molecular collisions entail an equalization of temperatures and hence a tendency towards equilibrium. Five years later, in 1864, Ludwig Boltzmann, a young student in Vienna, came across Maxwell's paper and spent much of his life developing the subject further. proper was initiated in the 1870s with the work of Boltzmann, much of which was collectively published in his 1896 "Lectures on Gas Theory". Boltzmann's original papers on the statistical interpretation of thermodynamics, the H-theorem, transport theory, thermal equilibrium, the equation of state of gases, and similar subjects, occupy about 2,000 pages in the proceedings of the Vienna Academy and other societies. Boltzmann introduced the concept of an equilibrium statistical ensemble and also investigated for the first time non-equilibrium statistical mechanics, with his "H"-theorem. The term "statistical mechanics" was coined by the American mathematical physicist J. Willard Gibbs in 1884. "Probabilistic mechanics" might today seem a more appropriate term, but "statistical mechanics" is firmly entrenched | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=28481 |
Statistical mechanics Shortly before his death, Gibbs published in 1902 "Elementary Principles in Statistical Mechanics", a book which formalized statistical mechanics as a fully general approach to address all mechanical systems—macroscopic or microscopic, gaseous or non-gaseous. Gibbs' methods were initially derived in the framework classical mechanics, however they were of such generality that they were found to adapt easily to the later quantum mechanics, and still form the foundation of statistical mechanics to this day. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=28481 |
Stereochemistry Stereochemistry, a subdiscipline of chemistry, involves the study of the relative spatial arrangement of atoms that form the structure of molecules and their manipulation. The study of stereochemistry focuses on stereoisomers, which by definition have the same molecular formula and sequence of bonded atoms (constitution), but differ in the three-dimensional orientations of their atoms in space. For this reason, it is also known as 3D chemistry—the prefix "stereo-" means "three-dimensionality". An important branch of stereochemistry is the study of chiral molecules. spans the entire spectrum of organic, inorganic, biological, physical and especially supramolecular chemistry. includes methods for determining and describing these relationships; the effect on the physical or biological properties these relationships impart upon the molecules in question, and the manner in which these relationships influence the reactivity of the molecules in question (dynamic stereochemistry). Louis Pasteur could rightly be described as the first stereochemist, having observed in 1842 that salts of tartaric acid collected from wine production vessels could rotate the plane of polarized light, but that salts from other sources did not. This property, the only physical property in which the two types of tartrate salts differed, is due to optical isomerism. In 1874, Jacobus Henricus van 't Hoff and Joseph Le Bel explained optical activity in terms of the tetrahedral arrangement of the atoms bound to carbon | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=28756 |
Stereochemistry Kekulé used tetrahedral models earlier in 1862 but never published these; Emanuele Paternò probably knew of these but was the first to draw and discuss three dimensional structures, such as of 1,2-dibromoethane in the "Gazetta Chimica Italiana" in 1893. Cahn–Ingold–Prelog priority rules are part of a system for describing a molecule's stereochemistry. They rank the atoms around a stereocenter in a standard way, allowing the relative position of these atoms in the molecule to be described unambiguously. A Fischer projection is a simplified way to depict the stereochemistry around a stereocenter. An often cited example of the importance of stereochemistry relates to the thalidomide disaster. Thalidomide is a pharmaceutical drug, first prepared in 1957 in Germany, prescribed for treating morning sickness in pregnant women. The drug was discovered to be teratogenic, causing serious genetic damage to early embryonic growth and development, leading to limb deformation in babies. Some of the several proposed mechanisms of teratogenicity involve a different biological function for the ("R")- and the ("S")-thalidomide enantiomers. In the human body however, thalidomide undergoes racemization: even if only one of the two enantiomers is administered as a drug, the other enantiomer is produced as a result of metabolism. Accordingly, it is incorrect to state that one stereoisomer is safe while the other is teratogenic. Thalidomide is currently used for the treatment of other diseases, notably cancer and leprosy | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=28756 |
Stereochemistry Strict regulations and controls have been enabled to avoid its use by pregnant women and prevent developmental deformations. This disaster was a driving force behind requiring strict testing of drugs before making them available to the public. Many definitions that describe a specific conformer (IUPAC Gold Book) exist, developed by William Klyne and Vladimir Prelog, constituting their Klyne–Prelog system of nomenclature: Torsional strain results from resistance to twisting about a bond. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=28756 |
Tamara E. Jernigan Tamara Elizabeth "Tammy" Jernigan, Ph.D. (born May 7, 1959, in Chattanooga, Tennessee) is an American scientist and former NASA astronaut and a veteran of five shuttle missions. She currently serves as Deputy Principal Associate Director in the Weapons and Complex Integration (WCI) organization at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Jernigan attended Santa Fe High School in Santa Fe Springs, CA. She graduated in 1977. Jernigan attended Stanford University, where she earned a B.S. degree in physics in 1981, an M.S. in engineering science in 1983. At the University of California, Berkeley, she received an M.S. in astronomy in 1985. In 1988 she was awarded a Ph.D. in space physics and astronomy from Rice University. Her research focused on the modeling of high-velocity outflows in regions of star formation, gamma-ray bursters, and the study of radiation produced by interstellar shock waves. Jernigan began working for NASA in June 1981 at the Ames Research Center while earning her degrees at Stanford and Berkeley. She worked at the research center until June 1985 when she was selected to be an astronaut. She entered the NASA Astronaut Corps in 1986 and retired in 2001. Her first trip to space was on June 5, 1991. She flew on five Space Shuttle program missions (three on "Columbia" and one each on "Endeavour" and "Discovery") and logged 1512 hours in space. In her last mission on "Discovery" in 1999, she performed an extra-vehicular activity for 7 hours and 55.5 minutes | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30262 |
Tamara E. Jernigan Jernigan has served as Deputy Chief of the Astronaut Office, assisting with the management of both military and civilian astronauts and support personnel and as Deputy for the Space Station program where she developed and advocated Astronaut Office positions on the design and operation of the International Space Station. She also represented NASA management on the U.S. negotiating team in Moscow during technical interchange meetings designed to resolve crew training, crew rotation, and operational issues. She is the recipient of the NASA Distinguished Service Medal and the NASA Outstanding Leadership Medal. She currently resides in Pleasanton, California. She is married and has a child, Jeffrey Wisoff with former astronaut Peter Wisoff. They both currently work at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30262 |
Theoretical chemistry is the branch of chemistry which develops theoretical generalizations that are part of the theoretical arsenal of modern chemistry: for example, the concepts of chemical bonding, chemical reaction, valence, the surface of potential energy, molecular orbitals, orbital interactions, molecule activation, etc. unites principles and concepts common to all branches of chemistry. Within the framework of theoretical chemistry, there is a systematization of chemical laws, principles and rules, their refinement and detailing, the construction of a hierarchy. The central place in theoretical chemistry is occupied by the doctrine of the interconnection of the structure and properties of molecular systems. It uses mathematical and physical methods to explain the structures and dynamics of chemical systems and to correlate, understand, and predict their thermodynamic and kinetic properties. In the most general sense, it is explanation of chemical phenomena by methods of theoretical physics. In contrast to theoretical physics, in connection with the high complexity of chemical systems, theoretical chemistry, in addition to approximate mathematical methods, often uses semi-empirical and empirical methods. In recent years, it has consisted primarily of quantum chemistry, i.e., the application of quantum mechanics to problems in chemistry | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=31491 |
Theoretical chemistry Other major components include molecular dynamics, statistical thermodynamics and theories of electrolyte solutions, reaction networks, polymerization, catalysis, molecular magnetism and spectroscopy. Modern theoretical chemistry may be roughly divided into the study of chemical structure and the study of chemical dynamics. The former includes studies of: electronic structure, potential energy surfaces, and force fields; vibrational-rotational motion; equilibrium properties of condensed-phase systems and macro-molecules. Chemical dynamics includes: bimolecular kinetics and the collision theory of reactions and energy transfer; unimolecular rate theory and metastable states; condensed-phase and macromolecular aspects of dynamics. Historically, the major field of application of theoretical chemistry has been in the following fields of research: Hence, theoretical chemistry has emerged as a branch of research. With the rise of the density functional theory and other methods like molecular mechanics, the range of application has been extended to chemical systems which are relevant to other fields of chemistry and physics, including biochemistry, condensed matter physics, nanotechnology or molecular biology. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=31491 |
Vaccination is the administration of a vaccine to help the immune system develop protection from a disease. Vaccines contain a microorganism or virus in a weakened, live or killed state, or proteins or toxins from the organism. In stimulating the body's adaptive immunity, they help prevent sickness from an infectious disease. When a sufficiently large percentage of a population has been vaccinated, herd immunity results. The effectiveness of vaccination has been widely studied and verified. is the most effective method of preventing infectious diseases; widespread immunity due to vaccination is largely responsible for the worldwide eradication of smallpox and the elimination of diseases such as polio and tetanus from much of the world. The first disease people tried to prevent by inoculation was most likely smallpox, with the first recorded cases occurring in the 16th century in China. It was also the first disease for which a vaccine was produced. Although at least six people had used the same principles years earlier, the smallpox vaccine was invented in 1796 by English physician Edward Jenner. He was the first to publish evidence that it was effective and to provide advice on its production. Louis Pasteur furthered the concept through his work in microbiology. The immunization was called "vaccination" because it was derived from a virus affecting cows ( 'cow'). Smallpox was a contagious and deadly disease, causing the deaths of 20–60% of infected adults and over 80% of infected children | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=32473 |
Vaccination When smallpox was finally eradicated in 1979, it had already killed an estimated 300–500 million people in the 20th century. "Vaccination" and "immunization" have a similar meaning in everyday language. This is distinct from inoculation, which uses unweakened live pathogens. efforts have been met with some reluctance on scientific, ethical, political, medical safety, and religious grounds, although no major religions oppose vaccination, and some consider it an obligation due to the potential to save lives. In the United States, people may receive compensation for alleged injuries under the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program. Early success brought widespread acceptance, and mass vaccination campaigns have greatly reduced the incidence of many diseases in numerous geographic regions. Vaccines are a way of artificially activating the immune system to protect against infectious disease. The activation occurs through priming the immune system with an immunogen. Stimulating immune responses with an infectious agent is known as "immunization". includes various ways of administering immunogens. Most vaccines are administered before a patient has contracted a disease to help increase future protection. However, some vaccines are administered after the patient already has contracted a disease. Vaccines given after exposure to smallpox are reported to offer some protection from disease or may reduce the severity of disease | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=32473 |
Vaccination The first rabies immunization was given by Louis Pasteur to a child after he was bitten by a rabid dog. Since its discovery, the rabies vaccine have been proven effective in preventing rabies in humans when administered several times over 14 days along with rabies immune globulin and wound care. Other examples include experimental AIDS, cancer and Alzheimer's disease vaccines. Such immunizations aim to trigger an immune response more rapidly and with less harm than natural infection. Most vaccines are given by injection as they are not absorbed reliably through the intestines. Live attenuated polio, rotavirus, some typhoid, and some cholera vaccines are given orally to produce immunity in the bowel. While vaccination provides a lasting effect, it usually takes several weeks to develop. This differs from passive immunity (the transfer of antibodies, such as in breastfeeding), which has immediate effect. A vaccine failure is when an organism contracts a disease in spite of being vaccinated against it. Primary vaccine failure occurs when an organism's immune system does not produce antibodies when first vaccinated. Vaccines can fail when several series are given and fail to produce an immune response. The term "vaccine failure" does not necessarily imply that the vaccine is defective. Most vaccine failures are simply from individual variations in immune response. The term inoculation is often used interchangeably with vaccination. However, the terms are not synonymous | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=32473 |
Vaccination Dr Byron Plant explains: "is the more commonly used term, which actually consists of a 'safe' injection of a sample taken from a cow suffering from cowpox... Inoculation, a practice probably as old as the disease itself, is the injection of the variola virus taken from a pustule or scab of a smallpox sufferer into the superficial layers of the skin, commonly on the upper arm of the subject. Often inoculation was done 'arm-to-arm' or, less effectively, 'scab-to-arm'..." Inoculation oftentimes caused the patient to become infected with smallpox, and in some cases the infection turned into a severe case. Confirmed applications of inoculation for smallpox happened in China in the 1550s. Vaccinations began in the 18th century with the work of Edward Jenner and the smallpox vaccine. Just like any medication or procedure, no vaccine can be 100% safe or effective for everyone because each person's body can react differently. While minor side effects, such as soreness or low grade fever, are relatively common, serious side effects are very rare and occur in about 1 out of every 100,000 vaccinations and typically involve allergic reactions that can cause hives or difficulty breathing. However, vaccines are the safest they ever have been in history and each vaccine undergoes rigorous clinical trials to ensure their safety and efficacy before FDA approval. Prior to human testing, vaccines are run through computer algorithms to model how they will interact with the immune system and are tested on cells in a culture | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=32473 |
Vaccination During the next round of testing, researchers study vaccines in animals, including mice, rabbits, guinea pigs, and monkeys. Vaccines that pass each of these stages of testing are then approved by the FDA to start a three-phase series of human testing, advancing to higher phases only if they are deemed safe and effective at the previous phase. The people in these trials participate voluntarily and are required to prove they understand the purpose of the study and the potential risks. During phase I trials, a vaccine is tested in a group of about 20 people with the primary goal of assessing the vaccine's safety. Phase II trials expand the testing to include 50 to several hundred people. During this stage, the vaccine's safety continues to be evaluated and researchers also gather data on the effectiveness and the ideal dose of the vaccine. Vaccines determined to be safe and efficacious then advance to phase III trials, which focuses on the efficacy of the vaccine in hundreds to thousands of volunteers. This phase can take several years to complete and researchers use this opportunity to compare the vaccinated volunteers to those who have not been vaccinated to highlight any true reactions to the vaccine that occur. If a vaccine passes all of the phases of testing, the manufacturer can then apply for licensure of the vaccine through the FDA | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=32473 |
Vaccination Before the FDA approves use in the general public, they extensively review the results to the clinical trials, safety tests, purity tests, and manufacturing methods and establish that the manufacturer itself is up to government standards in many other areas. However, safety testing of the vaccines never ends even after FDA approval. The FDA continues to monitor the manufacturing protocols, batch purity, and the manufacturing facility itself. Additionally, most vaccines also undergo phase IV trials, which monitors the safe and efficacy of vaccines in tens of thousands of people, or more, across many years. This allows for delayed or very rare reactions to be detected and evaluated. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has compiled a list of vaccines and their possible side effects. The risk of side effects varies from one vaccine to the next, but below are examples of side effects and their approximate rate of occurrence with the diphtheria, tetanus, and acellular pertussis (DTaP) vaccine, a common childhood vaccine. Mild side effects (common) Moderate side effects (uncommon) Severe side effects (rare) The ingredients of vaccines can vary greatly from one to the next and no two vaccines are the same. The CDC has compiled a list of vaccines and their ingredients that is readily accessible on their website. Aluminium is an adjuvant ingredient in some vaccines | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=32473 |
Vaccination An adjuvant is a certain type of ingredient that is used to help the body's immune system create a stronger immune response after receiving the vaccination. Aluminium is in a salt form and is used in the following compounds: aluminium hydroxide, aluminium phosphate, and aluminium potassium sulfate. In chemistry, a salt is the ionic version of an element; another example is table salt: (sodium) and (chloride). For a given element, the ion form has different properties from the elemental form. Although it is possible to have aluminium toxicity, aluminium salts have been used effectively and safely since the 1930s when they were first used with the diphtheria and tetanus vaccines. Although there is a small increase in the chance of having a local reaction to a vaccine with an aluminium salt (redness, soreness, swelling), there is no increased risk of any serious reactions. Certain vaccines contain a compound called thimerosal, which is an organic compound that contains mercury. Mercury is commonly found in two forms that differ by the number of carbon groups in its chemical structure. Methylmercury (one carbon group) is found in fish and is the form that people usually ingest, while ethylmercury (two carbon groups) is the form that is in thimerosal. Although the two have similar chemical compounds, they do not have the same chemical properties and interact with the human body differently. Ethylmercury is cleared from the body faster than methylmercury and is less likely to cause toxic effects | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=32473 |
Vaccination Thimerosal is used to prevent the growth of bacteria and fungi in vials that contain more than one dose of a vaccine. This helps reduce the risk of potential infections and or serious illness that could occur from contamination of a vaccine vial. Although there is a small increase in risk of injection site redness and swelling with vaccines containing thimerosal, there is no increased risk of serious harm, including autism. Even though evidence supports the safety and efficacy of thimerosal in vaccines, thimerosal was removed from childhood vaccines in the United States in 2001 as a precaution. The administration protocols, efficacy, and adverse events of vaccines are monitored by organizations of the federal government, including the CDC and FDA, and independent agencies are constantly re-evaluating vaccine practices. As with all medications, vaccine use is determined by public health research, surveillance, and reporting to governments and the public. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimate that vaccination averts 2–3 million deaths per year (in all age groups), and up to 1.5 million children die each year due to diseases that could have been prevented by vaccination. They estimate that 29% of deaths of children under five years old in 2013 were vaccine preventable. In other developing parts of the world, they are faced with the challenge of having a decreased availability of resources and vaccinations | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=32473 |
Vaccination Countries such as those in Sub-Saharan Africa cannot afford to provide the full range of childhood vaccinations. Vaccines have led to major decreases in the prevalence of infectious diseases in the United States. In 2007, studies regarding the effectiveness of vaccines on mortality or morbidity rates of those exposed to various diseases have shown almost 100% decreases in death rates, and about a 90% decrease in exposure rates. This has allowed specific organizations and states to adopt standards for recommended early childhood vaccinations. Lower income families who are unable to otherwise afford vaccinations are supported by these organizations and specific government laws. The Vaccine for Children Program and the Social Security Act are two major players in supporting lower socioeconomic groups. In 2000, the CDC declared that measles had been eliminated in the US (defined as no disease transmission for 12 continuous months). However, with the growing anti-vaccine movement, the US has seen a resurgence of certain vaccine-preventable diseases. The measles virus has now lost its elimination status in the US as the number of measles cases continues to rise in recent years with a total of 17 outbreaks in 2018 and 465 outbreaks in 2019 (as of April 4, 2019). It is known that the process of inoculation against smallpox was used by Chinese physicians in the 10th century. The mention of inoculation in the "Sact'eya Grantham", an Ayurvedic text, was noted by the French scholar in the journal "" | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=32473 |
Vaccination However, the idea that inoculation originated in India has been challenged, as few of the ancient Sanskrit medical texts described the process of inoculation. Accounts of inoculation against smallpox in China can be found as early as the late 10th century and was reportedly widely practised in China in the reign of the Longqing Emperor (r. 1567–72) during the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644). Two reports on the Chinese practice of inoculation were received by the Royal Society in London in 1700; one by Dr. Martin Lister who received a report by an employee of the East India Company stationed in China and another by Clopton Havers. According to Voltaire (1742), the Turks derived their use of inoculation to neighbouring Circassia. Voltaire does not speculate on where the Circassians derived their technique from, though he reports that the Chinese have practiced it "these hundred years". The Greek physicians Emmanuel Timonis (1669–1720) from the island of Chios and Jacob Pylarinos (1659–1718) from Cephalonia practised smallpox inoculation at Constantinople in the beginning of 18th century and published their work in "Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society" in 1714. This kind of inoculation and other forms of variolation were introduced into England by Lady Montagu, a famous English letter-writer and wife of the English ambassador at Istanbul between 1716 and 1718, who almost died from smallpox as a young adult and was physically scarred from it | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=32473 |
Vaccination Inoculation was adopted both in England and in America nearly half a century before Jenner's famous smallpox vaccine of 1796 but the death rate of about 2% from this method meant that it was mainly used during dangerous outbreaks of the disease and remained controversial. It was noticed during the 18th century that people who had suffered from the less virulent cowpox were immune to smallpox, and the first recorded use of this idea was by Benjamin Jesty, a farmer at Yetminster in Dorset, who had suffered the disease and deliberately transmitted it to his own family in 1774, his sons subsequently not getting the mild version of smallpox when later inoculated in 1789. It was Edward Jenner, a doctor in Berkeley in Gloucestershire, who established the procedure by introducing material from a cowpox vesicle on Sarah Nelmes, a milkmaid, into the arm of a boy named James Phipps. Two months later he inoculated the boy with smallpox and the disease did not develop. In 1798 Jenner published "An Inquiry into the Causes and Effects of the Variolae Vacciniae" which created widespread interest. He distinguished 'true' and 'spurious' cowpox (which did not give the desired effect) and developed an "arm-to-arm" method of propagating the vaccine from the vaccinated individual's pustule | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=32473 |
Vaccination Early attempts at confirmation were confounded by contamination with smallpox, but despite controversy within the medical profession and religious opposition to the use of animal material, by 1801 his report was translated into six languages and over 100,000 people were vaccinated. The term "vaccination" was coined in 1800 by the surgeon Richard Dunning in his text "Some observations on vaccination". Since then vaccination campaigns have spread throughout the globe, sometimes prescribed by law or regulations (See Acts). Vaccines are now used against a wide variety of diseases. Louis Pasteur further developed the technique during the 19th century, extending its use to killed agents protecting against anthrax and rabies. The method Pasteur used entailed treating the agents for those diseases so they lost the ability to infect, whereas inoculation was the hopeful selection of a less virulent form of the disease, and Jenner's vaccination entailed the substitution of a different and less dangerous disease. Pasteur adopted the name "vaccine" as a generic term in honour of Jenner's discovery. Maurice Hilleman was the most prolific vaccine inventor, developing successful vaccines for measles, mumps, hepatitis A, hepatitis B, chickenpox, meningitis, pneumonia and "Haemophilus influenzae". In modern times, the first vaccine-preventable disease targeted for eradication was smallpox. The World Health Organization (WHO) coordinated this global eradication effort | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=32473 |
Vaccination The last naturally occurring case of smallpox occurred in Somalia in 1977. In 1988, the governing body of WHO targeted polio for eradication by 2000. Although the target was missed, cases have been reduced by 99.99%. In 2000, the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization was established to strengthen routine vaccinations and introduce new and under-used vaccines in countries with a per capita GDP of under US $1000. To eliminate the risk of outbreaks of some diseases, at various times governments and other institutions have employed policies requiring vaccination for all people. For example, an 1853 law required universal vaccination against smallpox in England and Wales, with fines levied on people who did not comply. Common contemporary U.S. vaccination policies require that children receive recommended vaccinations before entering public school. Beginning with early vaccination in the nineteenth century, these policies were resisted by a variety of groups, collectively called antivaccinationists, who object on scientific, ethical, political, medical safety, religious, and other grounds. Common objections are that vaccinations do not work, that compulsory vaccination constitutes excessive government intervention in personal matters, or that the proposed vaccinations are not sufficiently safe. Many modern vaccination policies allow exemptions for people who have compromised immune systems, allergies to the components used in vaccinations or strongly held objections | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=32473 |
Vaccination In countries with limited financial resources, limited vaccination coverage results in greater morbidity and mortality due to infectious disease. More affluent countries are able to subsidize vaccinations for at-risk groups, resulting in more comprehensive and effective coverage. In Australia, for example, the Government subsidizes vaccinations for seniors and indigenous Australians. Public Health Law Research, an independent US based organization, reported in 2009 that there is insufficient evidence to assess the effectiveness of requiring vaccinations as a condition for specified jobs as a means of reducing incidence of specific diseases among particularly vulnerable populations; that there is sufficient evidence supporting the effectiveness of requiring vaccinations as a condition for attending child care facilities and schools; and that there is strong evidence supporting the effectiveness of standing orders, which allow healthcare workers without prescription authority to administer vaccine as a public health intervention. Allegations of vaccine injuries in recent decades have appeared in litigation in the U.S. Some families have won substantial awards from sympathetic juries, even though most public health officials have said that the claims of injuries were unfounded. In response, several vaccine makers stopped production, which the US government believed could be a threat to public health, so laws were passed to shield manufacturers from liabilities stemming from vaccine injury claims | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=32473 |
Vaccination The safety and side effects of multiple vaccines have been tested in order to uphold the viability of vaccines as a barrier against disease. The influenza vaccine was tested in controlled trials and proven to have negligible side effects equal to that of a placebo. Some concerns from families might have arisen from social beliefs and norms that cause them to mistrust or refuse vaccinations, contributing to this discrepancy in side effects that were unfounded. Opposition to vaccination, from a wide array of vaccine critics, has existed since the earliest vaccination campaigns. It is widely accepted that the benefits of preventing serious illness and death from infectious diseases greatly outweigh the risks of rare serious adverse effects following immunization. Some studies have claimed to show that current vaccine schedules increase infant mortality and hospitalization rates; those studies, however, are correlational in nature and therefore cannot demonstrate causal effects, and the studies have also been criticized for cherry picking the comparisons they report, for ignoring historical trends that support an opposing conclusion, and for counting vaccines in a manner that is "completely arbitrary and riddled with mistakes". Various disputes have arisen over the morality, ethics, effectiveness, and safety of vaccination. Some vaccination critics say that vaccines are ineffective against disease or that vaccine safety studies are inadequate | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=32473 |
Vaccination Some religious groups do not allow vaccination, and some political groups oppose mandatory vaccination on the grounds of individual liberty. In response, concern has been raised that spreading unfounded information about the medical risks of vaccines increases rates of life-threatening infections, not only in the children whose parents refused vaccinations, but also in those who cannot be vaccinated due to age or immunodeficiency, who could contract infections from unvaccinated carriers (see herd immunity). Some parents believe vaccinations cause autism, although there is no scientific evidence to support this idea. In 2011, Andrew Wakefield, a leading proponent of the theory that MMR vaccine causes autism, was found to have been financially motivated to falsify research data and was subsequently stripped of his medical license. In the United States people who refuse vaccines for non-medical reasons have made up a large percentage of the cases of measles, and subsequent cases of permanent hearing loss and death caused by the disease. Many parents do not vaccinate their children because they feel that diseases are no longer present due to vaccination. This is a false assumption, since diseases held in check by immunization programs can and do still return if immunization is dropped. These pathogens could possibly infect vaccinated people, due to the pathogen's ability to mutate when it is able to live in unvaccinated hosts. In 2010, California had the worst whooping cough outbreak in 50 years | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=32473 |
Vaccination A possible contributing factor was parents choosing not to vaccinate their children. There was also a case in Texas in 2012 where 21 members of a church contracted measles because they chose not to immunize. The notion of a connection between vaccines and autism originated in a 1998 paper published in "The Lancet" whose lead author was the physician Andrew Wakefield. His study concluded that eight of the 12 patients (ages 3–10) developed behavioral symptoms consistent with autism following the MMR vaccine (an immunization against measles, mumps, and rubella). The article was widely criticized for lack of scientific rigor and it was proven that Wakefield falsified data in the article. In 2004, 10 of the original 12 co-authors (not including Wakefield) published a retraction of the article and stated the following: "We wish to make it clear that in this paper no causal link was established between MMR vaccine and autism as the data were insufficient." In 2010, "The Lancet" officially retracted the article stating that several elements of the article were incorrect, including falsified data and protocols. This "Lancet" article has sparked a much greater anti-vaccination movement, particularly in the United States. Even though the article was fraudulent and was retracted, 1 in 4 parents still believe vaccines can cause autism. To date, all validated and definitive studies have shown that there is no correlation between vaccines and autism | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=32473 |
Vaccination One of the studies published in 2015 confirms there is no link between autism and the MMR vaccine. Infants were given a health plan, that included an MMR vaccine, and were continuously studied until they reached 5 years old. There was no link between the vaccine and children who had a normally developed sibling or a sibling that had autism making them a higher risk for developing autism themselves. It can be difficult to correct the memory of humans when wrong information is received prior to correct information. Even though there is much evidence to go against the Wakefield study and most of the co-authors publishing retractions, many continue to believe and base decisions off of it as it still lingers in their memory. Studies and research are being conducted to determine effective ways to correct misinformation in the public memory. Since the Wakefield study was released over 20 years ago, it may prove easier for newer generations to be properly educated on vaccinations. A very small percentage of people have adverse reactions to vaccines, and if there is a reaction it is often mild. These reactions do not include autism. A vaccine administration may be oral, by injection (intramuscular, intradermal, subcutaneous), by puncture, transdermal or intranasal. Several recent clinical trials have aimed to deliver the vaccines via mucosal surfaces to be up-taken by the common mucosal immunity system, thus avoiding the need for injections | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=32473 |
Vaccination Health is often used as one of the metrics for determining the economic prosperity of a country. This is because healthier individuals are generally better suited to contributing to the economic development of a country than the sick. There are many reasons for this. A person who is vaccinated for influenza, not only protects himself from the risk of influenza, but, simultaneously, prevents himself from infecting those around him. This leads to a healthier society, which allows individuals to be more economically productive. Children are consequently able to attend school more often and have been shown to do better academically. Similarly, adults are able to work more often, more efficiently, and more effectively. On the whole, vaccinations induce a net benefit to society. Vaccines are often noted for their high return on investment (ROI) values, especially when considering the long-term effects. Some vaccines have much higher ROI values than others. Studies have shown that the ratios of vaccination benefits to costs can differ substantially—from 27:1 for diphtheria/pertussis, to 13.5:1 for measles, 4.76:1 for varicella, and 0.68–1.1 : 1 for pneumococcal conjugate. Some governments choose to subsidize the costs of vaccines, due to some of the high ROI values attributed to vaccinations. The United States subsidizes over half of all vaccines for children, which costs between $400 and $600 each | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=32473 |
Vaccination Although most children do get vaccinated, the adult population of the USA is still below the recommended immunization levels. Many factors can be attributed to this issue. Many adults who have other health conditions are unable to be safely immunized, whereas others opt not to be immunized for the sake of private financial benefits. Many Americans are underinsured, and, as such, are required to pay for vaccines out-of-pocket. Others are responsible for paying high deductibles and co-pays. Although vaccinations usually induce long-term economic benefits, many governments struggle to pay the high short-term costs associated with labor and production. Consequently, many countries neglect to provide such services. The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations published a study in "The Lancet" in 2018 which estimated the costs of developing vaccines for diseases that could escalate into global humanitarian crises. They focused on 11 diseases which cause relatively few deaths at present and primarily strike the poor which have been highlighted as pandemic risks: They estimated that it would cost between $2.8 billion and $3.7 billion to develop at least one vaccine for each of them. This should be set against the potential cost of an outbreak. The 2003 SARS outbreak in East Asia cost $54 billion. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=32473 |
WIYN Consortium founding members were the University of Wisconsin–Madison (W), Indiana University (I), Yale University (Y), and the National Optical Astronomy Observatories (N). Yale University withdrew from the WIYN consortium on April 1, 2014 and was replaced by the University of Missouri in the fall of that year. In 2015, a NASA-NSF partnership called NN-EXPLORE effectively took over NOAO's share, although NOAO still manages the operations. Purdue University joined in 2017 for a three year period. The consortium operates two telescopes of 3.5 m and 0.9 m diameters. The universities financed the construction of the WIYN Observatory at Kitt Peak National Observatory (KPNO) in 1994. In 2001, the took over control of the KPNO telescope, built in 1960, and rechristened it as the "WIYN 0.9 m Telescope". This small but popular telescope was in danger of being mothballed for budgetary reasons. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=33901 |
Gender is the range of characteristics pertaining to, and differentiating between, masculinity and femininity. Depending on the context, these characteristics may include biological sex (i.e., the state of being male, female, or an intersex variation), sex-based social structures (i.e., gender roles), or gender identity. Most cultures use a gender binary, having two genders (boys/men and girls/women); those who exist outside these groups fall under the umbrella term "non-binary" or "genderqueer". Some societies have specific genders besides "man" and "woman", such as the hijras of South Asia; these are often referred to as "third genders" (and "fourth genders", etc.). Sexologist John Money introduced the terminological distinction between biological sex and gender as a role in 1955. Before his work, it was uncommon to use the word "gender" to refer to anything but grammatical categories. However, Money's meaning of the word did not become widespread until the 1970s, when feminist theory embraced the concept of a distinction between biological sex and the social construct of gender. Today, the distinction is followed in some contexts, especially the social sciences and documents written by the World Health Organization (WHO). In other contexts, including some areas of the social sciences, "gender" includes "sex" or replaces it. For instance, in non-human animal research, "gender" is commonly used to refer to the biological sex of the animals. This change in the meaning of gender can be traced to the 1980s | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=38076 |
Gender In 1993, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) started to use "gender" instead of "sex". Later, in 2011, the FDA reversed its position and began using "sex "as the biological classification and "gender" as "a person's self representation as male or female, or how that person is responded to by social institutions based on the individual's gender presentation." The social sciences have a branch devoted to gender studies. Other sciences, such as sexology and neuroscience, are also interested in the subject. The social sciences sometimes approach gender as a social construct, and gender studies particularly do, while research in the natural sciences investigates whether biological differences in males and females influence the development of gender in humans; both inform debate about how far biological differences influence the formation of gender identity. In some English literature, there is also a trichotomy between biological sex, psychological gender, and social gender role. This framework first appeared in a feminist paper on transsexualism in 1978. The modern English word "gender" comes from the Middle English "gender", "gendre", a loanword from Anglo-Norman and Middle French "gendre". This, in turn, came from Latin "genus". Both words mean "kind", "type", or "sort". They derive ultimately from a widely attested Proto-Indo-European (PIE) root "gn-", which is also the source of "kin", "kind", "king", and many other English words | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=38076 |
Gender It appears in Modern French in the word "genre" (type, kind, also "") and is related to the Greek root "gen-" (to produce), appearing in "gene", "genesis", and "oxygen". The "Oxford Etymological Dictionary of the English Language" of 1882 defined "gender" as "kind, breed, sex", derived from the Latin ablative case of "genus", like "genere natus", which refers to birth. The first edition of the "Oxford English Dictionary" (OED1, Volume 4, 1900) notes the original meaning of "gender" as "kind" had already become obsolete. The concept of gender, in the modern sense, is a recent invention in human history. The ancient world had no basis of understanding gender as it has been understood in the humanities and social sciences for the past few decades. The term "gender" had been associated with grammar for most of history and only started to move towards it being a malleable cultural construct in the 1950s and 1960s. Sexologist John Money introduced the terminological distinction between biological sex and gender as a role in 1955. Before his work, it was uncommon to use the word "gender" to refer to anything but grammatical categories. For example, in a bibliography of 12,000 references on marriage and family from 1900–1964, the term "gender" does not even emerge once. Analysis of more than 30 million academic article titles from 1945–2001 showed that the uses of the term ""gender"", were much rarer than uses of ""sex"", was often used as a grammatical category early in this period | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=38076 |
Gender By the end of this period, uses of ""gender"" outnumbered uses of ""sex"" in the social sciences, arts, and humanities. It was in the 1970s that feminist scholars adopted the term "gender" as way of distinguishing “socially constructed” aspects of male–female differences (gender) from “biologically determined” aspects (sex). In the last two decades of the 20th century, the use of "gender" in academia has increased greatly, outnumbering uses of "sex" in the social sciences. While the spread of the word in science publications can be attributed to the influence of feminism, its use as a synonym for sex is attributed to the failure to grasp the distinction made in feminist theory, and the distinction has sometimes become blurred with the theory itself; David Haig stated, "Among the reasons that working scientists have given me for choosing gender rather than sex in biological contexts are desires to signal sympathy with feminist goals, to use a more academic term, or to avoid the connotation of copulation." In legal cases alleging discrimination, "sex" is usually preferred as the determining factor rather than "gender" as it refers to biology rather than socially constructed norms which are more open to interpretation and dispute. Julie Greenberg writes that although gender and sex are separate concepts, they are interlinked in that gender discrimination often results from stereotypes based on what is expected of members of each sex. In "J.E.B. v. Alabama ex rel. T.B | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=38076 |
Gender ", United States Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia wrote: The word was still widely used, however, in the specific sense of grammatical gender (the assignment of nouns to categories such as "masculine", "feminine" and "neuter"). According to Aristotle, this concept was introduced by the Greek philosopher Protagoras. In 1926, Henry Watson Fowler stated that the definition of the word pertained to this grammar-related meaning: Sexologist John Money coined the term "gender role", and was the first to use it in print in a scientific trade journal. In a seminal 1955 paper he defined it as "all those things that a person says or does to disclose himself or herself as having the status of boy or man, girl or woman." The modern academic sense of the word, in the context of social roles of men and women, dates at least back to 1945, and was popularized and developed by the feminist movement from the 1970s onwards (see § Feminism theory and gender studies below), which theorizes that human nature is essentially epicene and social distinctions based on sex are arbitrarily constructed. In this context, matters pertaining to this theoretical process of social construction were labelled matters of "gender". The popular use of "gender" simply as an alternative to "sex" (as a biological category) is also widespread, although attempts are still made to preserve the distinction | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=38076 |
Gender The "American Heritage Dictionary" (2000) uses the following two sentences to illustrate the difference, noting that the distinction "is useful in principle, but it is by no means widely observed, and considerable variation in usage occurs at all levels." "identity" refers to a personal identification with a particular gender and gender role in society. The term "woman" has historically been used interchangeably with reference to the female body, though more recently this usage has been viewed as controversial by some feminists. <nowiki> </nowiki>There are qualitative analyses that explore and present the representations of gender; however, feminists challenge these dominant ideologies concerning gender roles and biological sex. One's biological sex is directly tied to specific social roles and the expectations. Judith Butler considers the concept of being a woman to have more challenges, owing not only to society's viewing women as a social category but also as a felt sense of self, a culturally conditioned or constructed subjective identity. "Social identity" refers to the common identification with a collectivity or social category that creates a common culture among participants concerned. According to social identity theory, an important component of the self-concept is derived from memberships in social groups and categories; this is demonstrated by group processes and how inter-group relationships impact significantly on individuals' self perception and behaviors | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=38076 |
Gender The groups people belong to therefore provide members with the definition of who they are and how they should behave within their social sphere. Categorizing males and females into social roles creates a problem, because individuals feel they have to be at one end of a linear spectrum and must identify themselves as man or woman, rather than being allowed to choose a section in between. Globally, communities interpret biological differences between men and women to create a set of social expectations that define the behaviors that are "appropriate" for men and women and determine women's and men's different access to rights, resources, power in society and health behaviors. Although the specific nature and degree of these differences vary from one society to the next, they still tend to typically favor men, creating an imbalance in power and gender inequalities within most societies. Many cultures have different systems of norms and beliefs based on gender, but there is no universal standard to a masculine or feminine role across all cultures. Social roles of men and women in relation to each other is based on the cultural norms of that society, which lead to the creation of gender systems. The gender system is the basis of social patterns in many societies, which include the separation of sexes, and the primacy of masculine norms | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=38076 |
Gender Philosopher Michel Foucault said that as sexual subjects, humans are the object of power, which is not an institution or structure, rather it is a signifier or name attributed to "complex strategical situation". Because of this, "power" is what determines individual attributes, behaviors, etc. and people are a part of an ontologically and epistemologically constructed set of names and labels. For example, being female characterizes one as a woman, and being a woman signifies one as weak, emotional, and irrational, and incapable of actions attributed to a "man". Butler said that gender and sex are more like verbs than nouns. She reasoned that her actions are limited because she is female. "I am not permitted to construct my gender and sex willy-nilly," she said. "[This] is so because gender is politically and therefore socially controlled. Rather than 'woman' being something one is, it is something one does." More recent criticisms of Judith Butler's theories critique her writing for reinforcing the very conventional dichotomies of gender. According to gender theorist Kate Bornstein, gender can have ambiguity and fluidity. There are two contrasting ideas regarding the definition of gender, and the intersection of both of them is definable as below: The World Health Organization defines gender as the result of socially constructed ideas about the behavior, actions, and roles a particular sex performs | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=38076 |
Gender The beliefs, values and attitude taken up and exhibited by them is as per the agreeable norms of the society and the personal opinions of the person is not taken into the primary consideration of assignment of gender and imposition of gender roles as per the assigned gender. Intersections and crossing of the prescribed boundaries have no place in the arena of the social construct of the term "gender". The assignment of gender involves taking into account the physiological and biological attributes assigned by nature followed by the imposition of the socially constructed conduct. "Gender" is a term used to exemplify the attributes that a society or culture constitutes as "masculine" or "feminine". Although a person's sex as male or female stands as a biological fact that is identical in any culture, what that specific sex means in reference to a person's gender role as a woman or a man in society varies cross culturally according to what things are considered to be masculine or feminine. These roles are learned from various, intersecting sources such as parental influences, the socialization a child receives in school, and what is portrayed in the local media. Learning gender roles starts from birth and includes seemingly simple things like what color outfits a baby is clothed in or what toys they are given to play with. However, a person's gender does not always align with what has been assigned at birth. Factors other than learned behaviors play a role in the development of gender | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=38076 |
Gender Sexologist John Money coined the term "gender role" in 1955. The term "gender role" is defined as the actions or responses that may reveal their status as boy, man, girl or woman, respectively. Elements surrounding gender roles include clothing, speech patterns, movement, occupations, and other factors not limited to biological sex. In contrast to taxonomic approaches, some feminist philosophers have argued that gender "is a vast orchestration of subtle mediations between oneself and others", rather than a "private cause behind manifest behaviours". Historically, many if not most societies have recognized only two distinct, broad classes of gender roles, a binary of masculine and feminine, largely corresponding to the biological sexes of male and female. When a baby is born, society allocates the child to one gender or the other, on the basis of what their genitals resemble. However, some societies have historically acknowledged and even honored people who fulfill a gender role that exists more in the middle of the continuum between the feminine and masculine polarity. For example, the Hawaiian māhū, who occupy "a place in the middle" between male and female, or the Ojibwe "ikwekaazo", "men who choose to function as women", or "ininiikaazo", "women who function as men". In the language of the sociology of gender, some of these people may be considered third gender, especially by those in gender studies or anthropology | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=38076 |
Gender Contemporary Native American and FNIM people who fulfill these traditional roles in their communities may also participate in the modern, two-spirit community, however, these umbrella terms, neologisms, and ways of viewing gender are not necessarily the type of cultural constructs that more traditional members of these communities agree with. The hijras of India and Pakistan are often cited as third gender. Another example may be the muxe (pronounced ), found in the state of Oaxaca, in southern Mexico. The Bugis people of Sulawesi, Indonesia have a tradition that incorporates all the features above. In addition to these traditionally recognized third genders, many cultures now recognize, to differing degrees, various non-binary gender identities. People who are non-binary (or genderqueer) have gender identities that are not exclusively masculine or feminine. They may identify as having an overlap of gender identities, having two or more genders, having no gender, having a fluctuating gender identity, or being third gender or other-gendered. Recognition of non-binary genders is still somewhat new to mainstream Western culture, and non-binary people may face increased risk of assault, harassment, and discrimination. Joan Roughgarden argues that some non-human animal species also have more than two genders, in that there might be multiple templates for behavior available to individual organisms with a given biological sex | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=38076 |
Gender Early gender identity research hypothesized a single bipolar dimension of masculinity-femininity, with masculinity and femininity being opposites on one continuum. Assumptions of the unidimensional model were challenged as societal stereotypes changed, which led to the development of a two-dimensional gender identity model. In the model, masculinity and femininity were conceptualized as two separate and orthogonal dimensions, coexisting in varying degrees within an individual. This conceptualization on femininity and masculinity remains the accepted standard today. Two instruments incorporating the multidimensional nature of masculinity and femininity have dominated gender identity research: The Bem Sex Role Inventory (BSRI) and the Personal Attributes Questionnaire (PAQ). Both instruments categorize individuals as either being sex typed (males report themselves as identifying primarily with masculine traits, females report themselves as identifying primarily with feminine traits), cross sex-typed (males report themselves as identifying primarily with feminine traits, females report themselves as identifying primarily with masculine traits), androgynous (either males or females who report themselves as high on both masculine and feminine traits) or undifferentiated (either males or females who report themselves as low on both masculine and feminine traits) | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=38076 |
Gender Twenge (1997) noted that men are generally more masculine than women and women generally more feminine than men, but the association between biological sex and masculinity/femininity is waning. Biologist and feminist academic Anne Fausto-Sterling rejects the discourse of biological versus social determinism and advocates a deeper analysis of how interactions between the biological being and the social environment influence individuals' capacities. The philosopher and feminist Simone de Beauvoir applied existentialism to women's experience of life: "One is not born a woman, one becomes one." In context, this is a philosophical statement. However, it may be analyzed in terms of biology—a girl must pass puberty to become a woman—and sociology, as a great deal of mature relating in social contexts is learned rather than instinctive. Within feminist theory, terminology for gender issues developed over the 1970s. In the 1974 edition of "Masculine/Feminine or Human", the author uses "innate gender" and "learned sex roles", but in the 1978 edition, the use of "sex" and "gender" is reversed. By 1980, most feminist writings had agreed on using "gender" only for socioculturally adapted traits. In gender studies the term "gender" refers to proposed social and cultural constructions of masculinities and femininities. In this context, "gender" explicitly excludes reference to biological differences, to focus on cultural differences | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=38076 |
Gender This emerged from a number of different areas: in sociology during the 1950s; from the theories of the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan; and in the work of French psychoanalysts like Julia Kristeva, Luce Irigaray, and American feminists such as Judith Butler. Those who followed Butler came to regard gender roles as a practice, sometimes referred to as "performative". Charles E. Hurst states that some people think sex will, "...automatically determine one's gender demeanor and role (social) as well as one's sexual orientation (sexual attractions and behavior). sociologists believe that people have cultural origins and habits for dealing with gender. For example, Michael Schwalbe believes that humans must be taught how to act appropriately in their designated gender to fill the role properly, and that the way people behave as masculine or feminine interacts with social expectations. Schwalbe comments that humans "are the results of many people embracing and acting on similar ideas". People do this through everything from clothing and hairstyle to relationship and employment choices. Schwalbe believes that these distinctions are important, because society wants to identify and categorize people as soon as we see them. They need to place people into distinct categories to know how we should feel about them. Hurst comments that in a society where we present our genders so distinctly, there can often be severe consequences for breaking these cultural norms | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=38076 |
Gender Many of these consequences are rooted in discrimination based on sexual orientation. Gays and lesbians are often discriminated against in our legal system because of societal prejudices. Hurst describes how this discrimination works against people for breaking gender norms, no matter what their sexual orientation is. He says that "courts often confuse sex, gender, and sexual orientation, and confuse them in a way that results in denying the rights not only of gays and lesbians, but also of those who do not present themselves or act in a manner traditionally expected of their sex". This prejudice plays out in our legal system when a person is judged differently because they do not present themselves as the "correct" gender. Andrea Dworkin stated her "commitment to destroying male dominance and gender itself" while stating her belief in radical feminism. Political scientist Mary Hawkesworth addresses gender and feminist theory, stating that since the 1970s the concept of gender has transformed and been used in significantly different ways within feminist scholarship. She notes that a transition occurred when several feminist scholars, such as Sandra Harding and Joan Scott, began to conceive of gender "as an analytic category within which humans think about and organize their social activity". Feminist scholars in Political Science began employing gender as an analytical category, which highlighted "social and political relations neglected by mainstream accounts" | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=38076 |
Gender However, Hawkesworth states "feminist political science has not become a dominant paradigm within the discipline". American political scientist Karen Beckwith addresses the concept of gender within political science arguing that a "common language of gender" exists and that it must be explicitly articulated in order to build upon it within the political science discipline. Beckwith describes two ways in which the political scientist may employ 'gender' when conducting empirical research: "gender as a category and as a process." Employing gender as a category allows for political scientists "to delineate specific contexts where behaviours, actions, attitudes and preferences considered masculine or feminine result in particular" political outcomes. It may also demonstrate how gender differences, not necessarily corresponding precisely with sex, may "constrain or facilitate political" actors. as a process has two central manifestations in political science research, firstly in determining "the differential effects of structures and policies upon men and women," and secondly, the ways in which masculine and feminine political actors "actively work to produce favorable gendered outcomes". With regard to gender studies, Jacquetta Newman states that although sex is determined biologically, the ways in which people express gender is not. Gendering is a socially constructed process based on culture, though often cultural expectations around women and men have a direct relationship to their biology | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=38076 |
Gender Because of this, Newman argues, many privilege sex as being a cause of oppression and ignore other issues like race, ability, poverty, etc. Current gender studies classes seek to move away from that and examine the intersectionality of these factors in determining people's lives. She also points out that other non-Western cultures do not necessarily have the same views of gender and gender roles. Newman also debates the meaning of equality, which is often considered the goal of feminism; she believes that "equality" is a problematic term because it can mean many different things, such as people being treated identically, differently, or fairly based on their gender. Newman believes this is problematic because there is no unified definition as to what equality means or looks like, and that this can be significantly important in areas like public policy. Sociologists generally regard gender as a social construct, and various researchers, including many feminists, consider sex to only be a matter of biology and something that is not about social or cultural construction. For instance, sexologist John Money suggests the distinction between biological sex and gender as a role. Moreover, Ann Oakley, a professor of sociology and social policy, says "the constancy of sex must be admitted, but so also must the variability of gender | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=38076 |
Gender " The World Health Organization states, "'[s]ex' refers to the biological and physiological characteristics that define men and women," and "'gender' refers to the socially constructed roles, behaviours, activities, and attributes that a given society considers appropriate for men and women." Thus, sex is regarded as a category studied in biology (natural sciences), while gender is studied in humanities and social sciences. Lynda Birke, a feminist biologist, maintains "'biology' is not seen as something which might change." Therefore, it is stated that sex is something that does not change, while gender can change according to social structure. However, there are scholars who argue that sex is also socially constructed. For example, gender theorist Judith Butler states that "perhaps this construct called 'sex' is as culturally constructed as gender; indeed, perhaps it was always already gender, with the consequence that the distinction between sex and gender turns out to be no distinction at all." She continues:It would make no sense, then, to define gender as the cultural interpretation of sex, if sex is itself a gender-centered category. should not be conceived merely as the cultural inscription of meaning based on a given sex (a juridical conception); gender must also designate the very apparatus of production whereby the sexes themselves are established. [...] This production of sex as the pre-discursive should be understood as the effect of the apparatus of cultural construction designated by gender | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=38076 |
Gender Butler argues that "bodies only appear, only endure, only live within the productive constraints of certain highly gendered regulatory schemas," and sex is "no longer as a bodily given on which the construct of gender is artificially imposed, but as a cultural norm which governs the materialization of bodies." Marria Lugones states that, among the Yoruba people, there was no concept of gender and no gender system at all before colonialism. She argues that colonial powers used a gender system as a tool for domination and fundamentally changing social relations among the indigenous. With regard to history, Linda Nicholson, a professor of history and women's studies, points out that the understanding of human bodies as sexually dimorphic was historically not recognised. She argues that male and female genitals were considered inherently the same in Western society until the 18th century. At that time, female genitals were regarded as incomplete male genitals, and the difference between the two was conceived as a matter of degree. In other words, there was a belief in a gradation of physical forms, or a spectrum. In addition, drawing from the empirical research of intersex children, Anne Fausto-Sterling, a professor of biology and gender studies, describes how the doctors address the issues of intersexuality | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=38076 |
Gender She starts her argument with an example of the birth of an intersexual individual and maintains "our conceptions of the nature of gender difference shape, even as they reflect, the ways we structure our social system and polity; they also shape and reflect our understanding of our physical bodies." Then she adds how gender assumptions affects the scientific study of sex by presenting the research of intersexuals by John Money et al., and she concludes that "they never questioned the fundamental assumption that there are only two sexes, because their goal in studying intersexuals was to find out more about 'normal' development." She also mentions the language the doctors use when they talk with the parents of the intersexuals. After describing how the doctors inform parents about the intersexuality, she asserts that because the doctors believe that the intersexuals are actually male or female, they tell the parents of the intersexuals that it will take a little bit more time for the doctors to determine whether the infant is a boy or a girl. That is to say, the doctors' behavior is formulated by the cultural gender assumption that there are only two sexes. Lastly, she maintains that the differences in the ways in which the medical professionals in different regions treat intersexual people also give us a good example of how sex is socially constructed | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=38076 |
Gender In her "Sexing the body: gender politics and the construction of sexuality", she introduces the following example: A group of physicians from Saudi Arabia recently reported on several cases of XX intersex children with congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH), a genetically inherited malfunction of the enzymes that aid in making steroid hormones. [...] In the United States and Europe, such children, because they have the potential to bear children later in life, are usually raised as girls. Saudi doctors trained in this European tradition recommended such a course of action to the Saudi parents of CAH XX children. A number of parents, however, refused to accept the recommendation that their child, initially identified as a son, be raised instead as a daughter. Nor would they accept feminizing surgery for their child. [...] This was essentially an expression of local community attitudes with [...] the preference for male offspring. Thus it is evident that culture can play a part in assigning gender, particularly in relation to intersex children. Another work of Ann Fausto-Sterling's in which she discusses gender is "The Five Sexes: Why Male and Female Are Not Enough." In this article, Fausto-Sterling states that Western culture has only two sexes and that even their language restricts the presence of more than two sexes. She argues that instead of having a binomial nomenclature for organizing humans into two distinct sexes (male and female), there are at least five sexes in the broad spectrum of gender | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=38076 |
Gender These five sexes include male, female, hermaphrodite, female pseudohermaphrodites (individuals who have ovaries and some male genitalia but lack testes), and male pseudohermaphrodites (individuals who have testes and some female genitalia but lack ovaries). Fausto-Sterling additionally adds that in the category of hermaphrodites, there are additional degrees and levels in which the genitalia are developed; this means that there may be more intersexes that exist in this continuum of gender. Fausto-Sterling argues that gender has been gradually institutionally disciplined into a binary system through medical advances. She brings up multiple instances where gender in history was not split into strictly male or female, and states that, by the end of the Middle Age, intersex individuals were forced to pick a side in the binary gender code and to adhere by it. She adds on that "hermaphrodites have unruly bodies" and they need to fit into society's definition of gender. Thus, modern-day parents have been urged by medical doctors to decide the sex for their hermaphroditic child immediately after childbirth. She emphasizes that the role of the medical community is that of an institutionalized discipline on society that there can only be two sexes: male and female and only the two listed are considered "normal | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=38076 |
Gender " Lastly, Fausto-Sterling argues that modern laws require humans to be labelled either as male or female and that "ironically, a more sophisticated knowledge of the complexity of sexual systems has led to the repression of such intricacy." She mentions this quote to inform the prevailing thought that hermaphrodites, without medical intervention, are assumed to live a life full of psychological pain when in fact, there is no evidence in which that is the case. She finishes up her argument asking what would happen if society started accepting intersex individuals. The article "Adolescent Gender-Role Identity and Mental Health: Intensification Revisited" focuses on the work of Heather A. Priess, Sara M. Lindberg, and Janet Shibley Hyde on whether or not girls and boys diverge in their gender identities during adolescent years. The researchers based their work on ideas previously mentioned by Hill and Lynch in their gender intensification hypothesis in that signals and messages from parents determine and affect their children's gender role identities. This hypothesis argues that parents affect their children's gender role identities and that different interactions spent with either parents will affect gender intensification. Priess and among other's study did not support the hypothesis of Hill and Lynch which stated "that as adolescents experience these and other socializing influences, they will become more stereotypical in their gender-role identities and gendered attitudes and behaviors | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=38076 |
Gender " However, the researchers did state that perhaps the hypothesis Hill and Lynch proposed was true in the past but is not true now due to changes in the population of teens in respect to their gender-role identities. Authors of "Unpacking the System: A Theoretical Perspective on Belief’s and Social Relations", Cecilia Ridgeway and Shelley Correll, argue that gender is more than an identity or role but is something that is institutionalized through "social relational contexts." Ridgeway and Correll define "social relational contexts" as "any situation in which individuals define themselves in relation to others in order to act." They also point out that in addition to social relational contexts, cultural beliefs plays a role in the gender system. The coauthors argue that daily people are forced to acknowledge and interact with others in ways that are related to gender. Every day, individuals are interacting with each other and comply with society's set standard of hegemonic beliefs, which includes gender roles. They state that society's hegemonic cultural beliefs sets the rules which in turn create the setting for which social relational contexts are to take place. Ridgeway and Correll then shift their topic towards sex categorization. The authors define sex categorization as "the sociocognitive process by which we label another as male or female | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=38076 |
Gender " In most cases, men and women and boys and girls are similar in behavior, with little gender difference, but some gendered behavior is influenced by prenatal and early life androgen exposure. This includes, for example, gender normative play, self-identification with a gender, and tendency to engage in aggressive behavior. Males of most mammals, including humans, exhibit more rough and tumble play behavior, which is influenced by maternal testosterone levels. These levels may also influence sexuality, with non-heterosexual persons exhibiting sex atypical behavior in childhood. The biology of gender became the subject of an expanding number of studies over the course of the late 20th century. One of the earliest areas of interest was what became known as "gender identity disorder" (GID) and which is now also described as gender dysphoria. Studies in this, and related areas, inform the following summary of the subject by John Money. He stated: Money refers to attempts to distinguish a difference between biological sex and social gender as "scientifically debased", because of our increased knowledge of a continuum of dimorphic features (Money's word is "dipolar") that link biological and behavioral differences. These extend from the exclusively biological "genetic" and "prenatal hormonal" differences between men and women, to "postnatal" features, some of which are social, but others have been shown to result from "post-pubertal hormonal" effects | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=38076 |
Gender Although causation from the biological—genetic and hormonal—to the behavioral has been broadly demonstrated and accepted, Money is careful to also note that understanding of the causal chains from biology to behavior in sex and gender issues is very far from complete. For example, the existence of a "gay gene" has not been proven, but such a gene remains an acknowledged possibility. There are studies concerning women who have a condition called congenital adrenal hyperplasia, which leads to the overproduction of the masculine sex hormone, androgen. These women usually have ordinary female appearances (though nearly all girls with congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH) have corrective surgery performed on their genitals). However, despite taking hormone-balancing medication given to them at birth, these females are statistically more likely to be interested in activities traditionally linked to males than female activities. Psychology professor and CAH researcher Dr. Sheri Berenbaum attributes these differences to an exposure of higher levels of male sex hormones in utero. The following gender taxonomy illustrates the kinds of diversity that have been studied and reported in medical literature. It is placed in roughly chronological order of biological and social development in the human life cycle. The earlier stages are more purely biological and the latter are more dominantly social. Causation is known to operate from chromosome to gonads, and from gonads to hormones | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=38076 |
Gender It is also significant from brain structure to gender identity (see Money quote above). Brain structure and processing (biological) that may explain erotic preference (social), however, is an area of ongoing research. Terminology in some areas changes quite rapidly as knowledge grows. Although sexual reproduction is "defined" at the cellular level, key features of sexual reproduction operate "within" the structures of the gamete cells themselves. Notably, gametes carry very long molecules called DNA that the biological processes of reproduction can "read" like a book of instructions. In fact, there are typically many of these "books", called "chromosomes". Human gametes usually have 23 chromosomes, 22 of which are common to both sexes. The final chromosomes in the two human gametes are called "sex" chromosomes because of their role in sex determination. Ova always have the same sex chromosome, labelled "X". About half of spermatozoa also have this same X chromosome, the rest have a Y-chromosome. At fertilization the gametes fuse to form a cell, usually with 46 chromosomes, and either XX female or XY male, depending on whether the sperm carried an X or a Y chromosome. Some of the other possibilities are listed above. Genes which are specific to the X or Y chromosome are called sex-linked genes. For example, the genes which create red and green retinal photoreceptors are located on the X chromosome, which men only have one of | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=38076 |
Gender Thus red-green color blindness is an X-linked recessive trait and is much more common in men. However, sex-limited genes on any chromosome can be expressed to indicate, for example, "if in a male body, do X; otherwise, do not." The human XY system is not the only sex determination system. Birds typically have a reverse, ZW system—males are ZZ and females ZW. Whether male or female birds influence the sex of offspring is not known for all species. Several species of butterfly are known to have female parent sex determination. The platypus has a complex hybrid system, the male has ten sex chromosomes, half X and half Y. "It is well established that men have a larger cerebrum than women by about 8–10% (Filipek et al., 1994; Nopoulos et al., 2000; Passe et al., 1997a,b; Rabinowicz et al., 1999; Witelson et al., 1995)." However, what is functionally relevant are differences in composition and "wiring". Richard J. Haier and colleagues at the universities of New Mexico and California (Irvine) found, using brain mapping, that men have more grey matter related to general intelligence than women, and women have more white matter related to intelligence than men – the ratio between grey and white matter is 4% higher for men than women. Grey matter is used for information processing, while white matter consists of the connections between processing centers. Other differences are measurable but less pronounced | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=38076 |
Gender Most of these differences are produced by hormonal activity, ultimately derived from the Y chromosome and sexual differentiation. However, differences that arise directly from gene activity have also been observed. It has also been demonstrated that brain processing responds to the external environment. Learning, both of ideas and behaviors, appears to be coded in brain processes. It also appears that in several simplified cases this coding operates differently, but in some ways equivalently, in the brains of men and women. For example, both men and women learn and use language; however, bio-chemically, they appear to process it differently. Differences in female and male use of language are likely reflections "both" of biological preferences and aptitudes, "and" of learned patterns. Testosterone acts on many organs of the body, including the SDN-POA located in the sexually dimorphic nucleus of the brain and the Onuf's nucleus in the spinal cord, to create the masculinized patterns. studies is a field of interdisciplinary study and academic field devoted to gender, gender identity and gendered representation as central categories of analysis. This field includes Women's studies (concerning women, feminity, their gender roles and politics, and feminism), Men's studies (concerning men, masculinity, their gender roles, and politics), and LGBT studies. Sometimes studies is offered together with Study of Sexuality | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=38076 |
Gender These disciplines study gender and sexuality in the fields of literature and language, history, political science, sociology, anthropology, cinema and media studies, human development, law, and medicine. It also analyses race, ethnicity, location, nationality, and disability. Many of the more complicated human behaviors are influenced by both innate factors and by environmental ones, which include everything from genes, gene expression, and body chemistry, through diet and social pressures. A large area of research in behavioral psychology collates evidence in an effort to discover correlations between behavior and various possible antecedents such as genetics, gene regulation, access to food and vitamins, culture, gender, hormones, physical and social development, and physical and social environments. A core research area within sociology is the way human behavior operates on "itself", in other words, how the behavior of one group or individual influences the behavior of other groups or individuals. Starting in the late 20th century, the feminist movement has contributed extensive study of gender and theories about it, notably within sociology but not restricted to it. Social theorists have sought to determine the specific nature of gender in relation to biological sex and sexuality, with the result being that culturally established gender and sex have become interchangeable identifications that signify the allocation of a specific 'biological' sex within a categorical gender | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=38076 |
Gender The second wave feminist view that gender is socially constructed and hegemonic in all societies, remains current in some literary theoretical circles, Kira Hall and Mary Bucholtz publishing new perspectives as recently as 2008. Contemporary socialisation theory proposes the notion that when a child is first born it has a biological sex but no social gender. As the child grows, "...society provides a string of prescriptions, templates, or models of behaviors appropriate to the one sex or the other," which socialises the child into belonging to a culturally specific gender. There is huge incentive for a child to concede to their socialisation with gender shaping the individual's opportunities for education, work, family, sexuality, reproduction, authority, and to make an impact on the production of culture and knowledge. Adults who do not perform these ascribed roles are perceived from this perspective as deviant and improperly socialized. Some believe society is constructed in a way that splits gender into a dichotomy via social organisations that constantly invent and reproduce cultural images of gender. Joan Acker believes gendering occurs in at least five different interacting social processes: Looking at gender through a Foucauldian lens, gender is transfigured into a vehicle for the social division of power | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=38076 |
Gender difference is merely a construct of society used to enforce the distinctions made between what is assumed to be female and male, and allow for the domination of masculinity over femininity through the attribution of specific gender-related characteristics. "The idea that men and women are more different from one another than either is from anything else, must come from something other than nature... far from being an expression of natural differences, exclusive gender identity is the suppression of natural similarities." conventions play a large role in attributing masculine and feminine characteristics to a fundamental biological sex. Socio-cultural codes and conventions, the rules by which society functions, and which are both a creation of society as well as a constituting element of it, determine the allocation of these specific traits to the sexes. These traits provide the foundations for the creation of hegemonic gender difference. It follows then, that gender can be assumed as the acquisition and internalisation of social norms. Individuals are therefore socialized through their receipt of society's expectations of 'acceptable' gender attributes that are flaunted within institutions such as the family, the state and the media. Such a notion of 'gender' then becomes naturalized into a person's sense of self or identity, effectively imposing a gendered social category upon a sexed body | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=38076 |
Gender The conception that people are gendered rather than sexed also coincides with Judith Butler's theories of gender performativity. Butler argues that gender is not an expression of what one is, but rather something that one does. It follows then, that if gender is acted out in a repetitive manner it is in fact re-creating and effectively embedding itself within the social consciousness. Contemporary sociological reference to male and female gender roles typically uses "masculinities" and "femininities" in the plural rather than singular, suggesting diversity both within cultures as well as across them. The difference between the sociological and popular definitions of gender involve a different dichotomy and focus. For example, the sociological approach to "gender" (social roles: female versus male) focuses on the difference in (economic/power) position between a male CEO (disregarding the fact that he is heterosexual or homosexual) to female workers in his employ (disregarding whether they are straight or gay). However the popular sexual self-conception approach (self-conception: gay versus straight) focuses on the different self-conceptions and social conceptions of those who are gay/straight, in comparison with those who are straight (disregarding what might be vastly differing economic and power positions between female and male groups in each category). There is then, in relation to definition of and approaches to "gender", a tension between historic feminist sociology and contemporary homosexual sociology | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=38076 |
Gender A person's sex as male or female has legal significance—sex is indicated on government documents, and laws provide differently for men and women. Many pension systems have different retirement ages for men or women. Marriage is usually only available to opposite-sex couples; in some countries and jurisdictions there are same-sex marriage laws. The question then arises as to what legally determines whether someone is female or male. In most cases this can appear obvious, but the matter is complicated for intersex or transgender people. Different jurisdictions have adopted different answers to this question. Almost all countries permit changes of legal gender status in cases of intersexualism, when the gender assignment made at birth is determined upon further investigation to be biologically inaccurate—technically, however, this is not a change of status "per se". Rather, it is recognition of a status deemed to exist but unknown from birth. Increasingly, jurisdictions also provide a procedure for changes of legal gender for transgender people. assignment, when there are indications that genital sex might not be decisive in a particular case, is normally not defined by a single definition, but by a combination of conditions, including chromosomes and gonads. Thus, for example, in many jurisdictions a person with XY chromosomes but female gonads could be recognized as female at birth | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=38076 |
Gender The ability to change legal gender for transgender people in particular has given rise to the phenomena in some jurisdictions of the same person having different genders for the purposes of different areas of the law. For example, in Australia prior to the Re Kevin decisions, transsexual people could be recognized as having the genders they identified with under many areas of the law, including social security law, but not for the law of marriage. Thus, for a period, it was possible for the same person to have two different genders under Australian law. It is also possible in federal systems for the same person to have one gender under state law and a different gender under federal law. For intersex people, who according to the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, "do not fit typical binary notions of male or female bodies", access to any form of identification document with a gender marker may be an issue. For other intersex people, there may be issues in securing the same rights as other individuals assigned male or female; other intersex people may seek non-binary gender recognition. Some countries now legally recognize non-binary or third genders, including Canada, Germany, Australia, India and Pakistan. In the United States, Oregon was the first state to legally recognize non-binary gender in 2017, and was followed by California and the District of Columbia. Natural languages often make gender distinctions | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=38076 |
Gender These may be of various kinds, more or less loosely associated by analogy with various actual or perceived differences between men and women. Some grammatical gender systems go beyond, or ignore, the masculine-feminine distinction. Historically, science has been portrayed as a masculine pursuit in which women have faced significant barriers to participate. Even after universities began admitting women in the 19th century, women were still largely relegated to certain scientific fields, such as home science, nursing, and child psychology. Women were also typically given tedious, low-paying jobs and denied opportunities for career advancement. This was often justified by the stereotype that women were naturally more suited to jobs that required concentration, patience, and dexterity, rather than creativity, leadership, or intellect. Although these stereotypes have been dispelled in modern times, women are still underrepresented in prestigious "hard science" fields such as physics, and are less likely to hold high-ranking positions. This topic includes internal and external religious issues such as gender of God and deities creation myths about human gender, roles and rights (for instance, leadership roles especially ordination of women, sex segregation, gender equality, marriage, abortion, homosexuality) According to Kati Niemelä of the Church Research Institute, women are universally more religious than men | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=38076 |
Gender They believe that the difference in religiosity between genders is due to biological differences, for instance usually people seeking security in life are more religious, and as men are considered to be greater risk takers than women, they are less religious. Although religious fanaticism is more often seen in men than women. In Taoism, yin and yang are considered feminine and masculine, respectively. The Taijitu and concept of the Zhou period reach into family and gender relations. Yin is female and yang is male. They fit together as two parts of a whole. The male principle was equated with the sun: active, bright, and shining; the female principle corresponds to the moon: passive, shaded, and reflective. Male toughness was balanced by female gentleness, male action and initiative by female endurance and need for completion, and male leadership by female supportiveness. In Judaism, God is traditionally described in the masculine, but in the mystical tradition of the Kabbalah, the Shekhinah represents the feminine aspect of God's essence. However, Judaism traditionally holds that God is completely non-corporeal, and thus neither male nor female. Conceptions of the gender of God notwithstanding, traditional Judaism places a strong emphasis on individuals following Judaism's traditional gender roles, though many modern denominations of Judaism strive for greater egalitarianism. As well, traditional Jewish culture dictates that there are six genders | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=38076 |
Gender In Christianity, God is traditionally described in masculine terms and the Church has historically been described in feminine terms. On the other hand, Christian theology in many churches distinguishes between the masculine images used of God (Father, King, God the Son) and the reality they signify, which transcends gender, embodies all the virtues of both men and women perfectly, which may be seen through the doctrine of Imago Dei. In the New Testament, Jesus at several times mentions the Holy Spirit with the masculine pronoun i.e. John 15:26 among other verses. Hence, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit (i.e. Trinity) are all mentioned with the masculine pronoun; though the exact meaning of the masculinity of the Christian triune God is contended. In Hinduism inequality is most common in women dealing with poverty. Many women must shoulder all the responsibility of the household because they must take care of the family. Oftentimes this may include tasks such as tilling land, grinding grain, carrying water and cooking. Also, women are more likely to earn low incomes because of gender discrimination, as men are more likely to receive higher pay, have more opportunities, and have overall more political and social capital then women. Approximately 75% of world's women are unable to obtain bank loans because they have unstable jobs. It shows that there are many women in the world's population but only a few represent world's wealth | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=38076 |
Gender In many countries, the financial sector largely neglects women even though they play an important role in the economy, as Nena Stoiljkovic pointed out in "D+C Development and Cooperation". In 1978 Diana M. Pearce coined the term feminization of poverty to describe the problem of women having higher rates of poverty. Women are more vulnerable to chronic poverty because of gender inequalities in the distribution of income, property ownership, credit, and control over earned income. Resource allocation is typically gender-biased within households, and continue on a higher level regarding state institutions. and Development (GAD) is a holistic approach to give aid to countries where gender inequality has a great effect of not improving the social and economic development. It is a program focused on the gender development of women to empower them and decrease the level of inequality between men and women. The largest discrimination study of the transgender community, conducted in 2013, found that the transgender community is four times more likely to live in extreme poverty (income of less than $10,000 a year) than people who are cisgender. According to general strain theory, studies suggest that gender differences between individuals can lead to externalized anger that may result in violent outbursts. These violent actions related to gender inequality can be measured by comparing violent neighborhoods to non-violent neighborhoods | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=38076 |
Gender By noticing the independent variables (neighborhood violence) and the dependent variable (individual violence), it's possible to analyze gender roles. The strain in the general strain theory is the removal of a positive stimulus and or the introduction of a negative stimulus, which would create a negative effect (strain) within individual, which is either inner-directed (depression/guilt) or outer-directed (anger/frustration), which depends on whether the individual blames themselves or their environment. Studies reveal that even though males and females are equally likely to react to a strain with anger, the origin of the anger and their means of coping with it can vary drastically. Males are likely to put the blame on others for adversity and therefore externalize feelings of anger. Females typically internalize their angers and tend to blame themselves instead. Female internalized anger is accompanied by feelings of guilt, fear, anxiety and depression. Women view anger as a sign that they've somehow lost control, and thus worry that this anger may lead them to harm others and/or damage relationships. On the other end of the spectrum, men are less concerned with damaging relationships and more focused on using anger as a means of affirming their masculinity. According to the general strain theory, men would more likely engage in aggressive behavior directed towards others due to externalized anger whereas women would direct their anger towards themselves rather than others | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=38076 |
Gender Also emotions could be influenced by gender. Results of Ingram et al. (2012) study shows, Feelings of anger were hypothesized to be reported more often in the descriptions of past conflicts of boys than in the descriptions of past conflicts of girls". On the other hand: "boys were no more likely than girls to describe feelings of anger ensuing from a conflict". Cause of this fact remains unclear although is discussed in Trnka's study (2013). Research has also shown participants were able to recognize the facial expression of fear significantly better on a male face than on a female face. Females also recognized fear generally better than males. Gender, and particularly the role of women is widely recognized as vitally important to international development issues. This often means a focus on gender-equality, ensuring participation, but includes an understanding of the different roles and expectation of the genders within the community. In modern times, the study of gender and development has become a broad field that involves politicians, economists, and human rights activists. and Development, unlike previous theories concerning women in development, includes a broader view of the effects of development on gender including economic, political, and social issues. The theory takes a holistic approach to development and its effects on women and recognizes the negative effects gender blind development policies have had on women | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=38076 |
Gender Prior to 1970, it was believed that development affected men and women in the same way and no gendered perspective existed for development studies. However, the 1970s saw a transformation in development theory that sought to incorporate women into existing development paradigms. When Ester Boserup published her book, "Woman’s Role in Economic Development", there was a realization that development affected men and women differently and there began to be more of a focus on women and development. Boserup argued that women were marginalized in the modernization process and practices of growth, development, and development policy threatened to actually make women worse off. Boserup's work translated into the beginning of a larger discourse termed Women in Development (WID) coined by the Women's Committee of the Washington DC Chapter of the Society for International Development, a network of female development professionals. The primary goal of WID was to include women into existing development initiatives, since it was argued that women were marginalized and excluded from the benefits of development. In so doing, the WID approach pointed out that the major problem to women's unequal representation and participation were male biased and patriarchal development policies. In short, the WID approach blamed patriarchy, which did not consider women's productive and reproductive work. In fact, women were tied to domestic work hence were almost invisible in development programs | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=38076 |
Gender The WID approach, however, began to gain criticism as ignoring how women's economic marginalization was linked to the development model itself. Some feminists argued that the key concept for women and development should be subordination in the context of new capitalist forms of insecure and hierarchical job structures, rather than marginalization as WID approaches emphasized. The rise of criticism against the WID approach led to the emergence of a new theory, that of Women and Development (WAD). However, just as WID had its critics, so did WAD. Critics of WAD argued that it failed to sufficiently address the differential power relations between women and men, and tended to overemphasize women's productive as opposed to reproductive roles. Also, rising criticism of the exclusion of men in WID and WAD led to a new theory termed and Development (GAD). Drawing from insights developed in psychology, sociology, and gender studies, GAD theorists shifted from understanding women's problems as based on their sex (i.e. their biological differences from men) to understanding them as based on gender – the social relations between women and men, their social construction, and how women have been systematically subordinated in this relationship | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=38076 |
Gender At their most fundamental, GAD perspectives link the social relations of production with the social relations of reproduction – exploring why and how women and men are assigned to different roles and responsibilities in society, how these dynamics are reflected in social, economic, and political theories and institutions, and how these relationships affect development policy effectiveness. According to proponents of GAD, women are cast not as passive recipients of development aid, but rather as active agents of change whose empowerment should be a central goal of development policy. In contemporary times, most literature and institutions that are concerned with women's role in development incorporate a GAD perspective, with the United Nations taking the lead of mainstreaming the GAD approach through its system and development policies. Researchers at the Overseas Development Institute have highlighted that policy dialogue on the Millennium Development Goals needs to recognize that the gender dynamics of power, poverty, vulnerability and care link all the goals. The various United Nations international women's conferences in Beijing, Mexico City, Copenhagen, and Nairobi, as well as the development of the Millennium Development Goals in 2000 have taken a GAD approach and holistic view of development | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=38076 |
Gender The United Nations Millennium Declaration signed at the United Nations Millennium Summit in 2000 including eight goals that were to be reached by 2015, and although it would be a difficult task to reach them, all of them could be monitored. The eight goals are: The MDGs have three goals specifically focused on women: Goal 3, 4 and 5 but women's issues also cut across all of the goals. These goals overall comprise all aspects of women's lives including economic, health, and political participation. equality is also strongly linked to education. The Dakar Framework for Action (2000) set out ambitious goals: to eliminate gender disparities in primary and secondary education by 2005, and to achieve gender equality in education by 2015. The focus was on ensuring girls' full and equal access to and achievement in good quality basic education. The gender objective of the Dakar Framework for Action is somewhat different from the MDG Goal 3 (Target 1): "Eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education, preferably by 2005, and in all levels of education no later than 2015". MDG Goal 3 does not comprise a reference to learner achievement and good quality basic education, but goes beyond the school level. Studies demonstrate the positive impact of girls' education on child and maternal health, fertility rates, poverty reduction and economic growth. Educated mothers are more likely to send their children to school | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=38076 |
Gender Some organizations working in developing countries and in the development field have incorporated advocacy and empowerment for women into their work. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) adopted a 10-year strategic framework in November 2009 that includes the strategic objective of gender equity in access to resources, goods, services and decision-making in rural areas, and mainstreams gender equity in all FAO's programs for agriculture and rural development. The Association for Progressive Communications (APC) has developed a Evaluation Methodology for planning and evaluating development projects to ensure they benefit all sectors of society including women. The Gender-related Development Index (GDI), developed by the United Nations, aims to show the inequalities between men and women in the following areas: long and healthy life, knowledge, and a decent standard of living. The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has introduced indicators designed to add a gendered dimension to the Human Development Index (HDI). Additionally, in 1995, the Gender-related Development Index (GDI) and the Empowerment Measure (GEM) were introduced. More recently, in 2010, UNDP introduced a new indicator, the Inequality Index (GII), which was designed to be a better measurement of gender inequality and to improve the shortcomings of GDI and GEM. is a topic of increasing concern within climate change policy and science | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=38076 |
Gender Generally, gender approaches to climate change address gender-differentiated consequences of climate change, as well as unequal adaptation capacities and gendered contribution to climate change. Furthermore, the intersection of climate change and gender raises questions regarding the complex and intersecting power relations arising from it. These differences, however, are mostly not due to biological or physical differences, but are formed by the social, institutional and legal context. Subsequently, vulnerability is less an intrinsic feature of women and girls but rather a product of their marginalization. Roehr notes that, while the United Nations officially committed to gender mainstreaming, in practice gender equality is not reached in the context of climate change policies. This is reflected in the fact that discourses of and negotiations over climate change are mostly dominated by men. Some feminist scholars hold that the debate on climate change is not only dominated by men but also primarily shaped in ‘masculine’ principles, which limits discussions about climate change to a perspective that focuses on technical solutions. This perception of climate change hides subjectivity and power relations that actually condition climate-change policy and science, leading to a phenomenon that Tuana terms ‘epistemic injustice’ | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=38076 |
Gender Similarly, MacGregor attests that by framing climate change as an issue of ‘hard’ natural scientific conduct and natural security, it is kept within the traditional domains of hegemonic masculinity. roles and stereotypes have slowly started to change in society within the past few decades. These changes occur mostly in communication, but more specifically during social interactions. The ways in which people communicate and socialize have also started to change due to advancements in technology. One of the biggest reasons for this change is the growth of social media. Over the past few years, the use of social media globally has started to rise. This rise can be attributed to the abundance of technology available for use among youth. Recent studies suggest that men and women value and use technology differently. Forbes published an article in 2010 that reported 57% of Facebook users are women, which was attributed to the fact that women are more active on social media. On average women have 8% more friends and account for 62% of posts that are shared via Facebook. Another study in 2010 found that in most Western cultures, women spend more time sending text messages compared to men as well as spending more time on social networking sites as a way to communicate with friends and family. Hayat, Lesser and Samuel-Azran (2017) have further shown that while men write more posts in social networking sites, women commented on other people's posts more often | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=38076 |
Gender They further showed that women's posts enjoyed higher popularity than men's post"s." Social media is more than just the communication of words. With social media increasing in popularity, pictures have come to play a large role in how many people communicate. Research conducted in 2013 found that over 57% of pictures posted on social networking sites were sexual and were created to gain attention. Moreover, 58% of women and 45% of men don't look into the camera, which creates an illusion of withdrawal. Other factors to be considered are the poses in pictures such as women lying down in subordinate positions or even touching themselves in childlike ways. Research has found that images shared online through social networking sites help establish personal self-reflections that individuals want to share with the world. According to recent research, gender plays a strong role in structuring our social lives, especially since society assigns and creates "male" and "female" categories. Individuals in society might be able to learn the similarities between gender rather than the differences. Social media helps create more equality, because every individual is able to express him- or herself however they like. Every individual also has the right to express their opinion, even though some might disagree, but it still gives each gender an equal amount of power to be heard. Young adults in the U.S | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=38076 |
Gender frequently use social networking sites as a way to connect and communicate with one another, as well as to satisfy their curiosity. Adolescent girls generally use social networking sites as a tool to communicate with peers and reinforce existing relationships; boys on the other hand tend to use social networking sites as a tool to meet new friends and acquaintances. Furthermore, social networking sites have allowed individuals to truly express themselves, as they are able to create an identity and socialize with other individuals that can relate. Social networking sites have also given individuals access to create a space where they feel more comfortable about their sexuality. Recent research has indicated that social media is becoming a stronger part of younger individuals' media culture, as more intimate stories are being told via social media and are being intertwined with gender, sexuality, and relationships. Teens are avid internet and social media users in the United States. Research has found that almost all U.S. teens (95%) aged 12 through 17 are online, compared to only 78% of adults. Of these teens, 80% have profiles on social media sites, as compared to only 64% of the online population aged 30 and older. According to a study conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation, 11-to-18 year-olds spend on average over one and a half hours a day using a computer and 27 minutes per day visiting social network sites, i.e. the latter accounts for about one fourth of their daily computer use | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=38076 |
Gender Teen girls and boys differ in what they post in their online profiles. Studies have shown that female users tend to post more "cute" pictures, while male participants were more likely to post pictures of themselves in activities. Women in the U.S. also tend to post more pictures of friends, while men tend to post more about sports and humorous links. The study also found that males would post more alcohol and sexual references. The roles were reversed however, when looking at a teenage dating site: women made sexual references significantly more often than males. Boys share more personal information, such as their hometown and phone number, while girls are more conservative about the personal information they allow to go public on these social networking sites. Boys, meanwhile, are more likely to orient towards technology, sports, and humor in the information they post to their profile. Social media goes beyond the role of helping individuals express themselves, as it has grown to help individuals create relationships, particularly romantic relationships. A large number of social media users have found it easier to create relationships in a less direct approach, compared to a traditional approach of awkwardly asking for someone's number. Social media plays a big role when it comes to communication between genders. Therefore, it's important to understand how gender stereotypes develop during online interactions | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=38076 |
Gender Research in the 1990s suggested that different genders display certain traits, such as being active, attractive, dependent, dominant, independent, sentimental, sexy, and submissive, in online interaction. Even though these traits continue to be displayed through gender stereotypes, recent studies show that this isn't necessarily the case any more. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=38076 |
Natural science is a branch of science concerned with the description, prediction, and understanding of natural phenomena, based on empirical evidence from observation and experimentation. Mechanisms such as peer review and repeatability of findings are used to try to ensure the validity of scientific advances. can be divided into two main branches: life science (or biological science) and physical science. Physical science is subdivided into branches, including physics, chemistry, astronomy and Earth science. These branches of natural science may be further divided into more specialized branches (also known as fields). As empirical sciences, natural sciences use tools from the formal sciences, such as mathematics and logic, converting information about nature into measurements which can be explained as clear statements of the "laws of nature". Modern natural science succeeded more classical approaches to natural philosophy, usually traced to ancient Greece. Galileo, Descartes, Bacon, and Newton debated the benefits of using approaches which were more mathematical and more experimental in a methodical way. Still, philosophical perspectives, conjectures, and presuppositions, often overlooked, remain necessary in natural science. Systematic data collection, including discovery science, succeeded natural history, which emerged in the 16th century by describing and classifying plants, animals, minerals, and so on. Today, "natural history" suggests observational descriptions aimed at popular audiences | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=38890 |
Natural science Philosophers of science have suggested a number of criteria, including Karl Popper's controversial falsifiability criterion, to help them differentiate scientific endeavors from non-scientific ones. Validity, accuracy, and quality control, such as peer review and repeatability of findings, are amongst the most respected criteria in the present-day global scientific community. This field encompasses a set of disciplines that examines phenomena related to living organisms. The scale of study can range from sub-component biophysics up to complex ecologies. Biology is concerned with the characteristics, classification and behaviors of organisms, as well as how species were formed and their interactions with each other and the environment. The biological fields of botany, zoology, and medicine date back to early periods of civilization, while microbiology was introduced in the 17th century with the invention of the microscope. However, it was not until the 19th century that biology became a unified science. Once scientists discovered commonalities between all living things, it was decided they were best studied as a whole. Some key developments in biology were the discovery of genetics; evolution through natural selection; the germ theory of disease and the application of the techniques of chemistry and physics at the level of the cell or organic molecule. Modern biology is divided into subdisciplines by the type of organism and by the scale being studied | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=38890 |
Natural science Molecular biology is the study of the fundamental chemistry of life, while cellular biology is the examination of the cell; the basic building block of all life. At a higher level, anatomy and physiology look at the internal structures, and their functions, of an organism, while ecology looks at how various organisms interrelate. Constituting the scientific study of matter at the atomic and molecular scale, chemistry deals primarily with collections of atoms, such as gases, molecules, crystals, and metals. The composition, statistical properties, transformations and reactions of these materials are studied. Chemistry also involves understanding the properties and interactions of individual atoms and molecules for use in larger-scale applications. Most chemical processes can be studied directly in a laboratory, using a series of (often well-tested) techniques for manipulating materials, as well as an understanding of the underlying processes. Chemistry is often called "the central science" because of its role in connecting the other natural sciences. Early experiments in chemistry had their roots in the system of Alchemy, a set of beliefs combining mysticism with physical experiments. The science of chemistry began to develop with the work of Robert Boyle, the discoverer of gas, and Antoine Lavoisier, who developed the theory of the Conservation of mass | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=38890 |
Natural science The discovery of the chemical elements and atomic theory began to systematize this science, and researchers developed a fundamental understanding of states of matter, ions, chemical bonds and chemical reactions. The success of this science led to a complementary chemical industry that now plays a significant role in the world economy. Physics embodies the study of the fundamental constituents of the universe, the forces and interactions they exert on one another, and the results produced by these interactions. In general, physics is regarded as the fundamental science, because all other natural sciences use and obey the principles and laws set down by the field. Physics relies heavily on mathematics as the logical framework for formulation and quantification of principles. The study of the principles of the universe has a long history and largely derives from direct observation and experimentation. The formulation of theories about the governing laws of the universe has been central to the study of physics from very early on, with philosophy gradually yielding to systematic, quantitative experimental testing and observation as the source of verification. Key historical developments in physics include Isaac Newton's theory of universal gravitation and classical mechanics, an understanding of electricity and its relation to magnetism, Einstein's theories of special and general relativity, the development of thermodynamics, and the quantum mechanical model of atomic and subatomic physics | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=38890 |
Natural science The field of physics is extremely broad, and can include such diverse studies as quantum mechanics and theoretical physics, applied physics and optics. Modern physics is becoming increasingly specialized, where researchers tend to focus on a particular area rather than being "universalists" like Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein and Lev Landau, who worked in multiple areas. This discipline is the science of celestial objects and phenomena that originate outside the Earth's atmosphere. It is concerned with the evolution, physics, chemistry, meteorology, and motion of celestial objects, as well as the formation and development of the universe. Astronomy includes the examination, study and modeling of stars, planets, comets, galaxies and the cosmos. Most of the information used by astronomers is gathered by remote observation, although some laboratory reproduction of celestial phenomena has been performed (such as the molecular chemistry of the interstellar medium). While the origins of the study of celestial features and phenomena can be traced back to antiquity, the scientific methodology of this field began to develop in the middle of the 17th century. A key factor was Galileo's introduction of the telescope to examine the night sky in more detail. The mathematical treatment of astronomy began with Newton's development of celestial mechanics and the laws of gravitation, although it was triggered by earlier work of astronomers such as Kepler | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=38890 |
Natural science By the 19th century, astronomy had developed into a formal science, with the introduction of instruments such as the spectroscope and photography, along with much-improved telescopes and the creation of professional observatories. The distinctions between the natural science disciplines are not always sharp, and they share a number of cross-discipline fields. Physics plays a significant role in the other natural sciences, as represented by astrophysics, geophysics, chemical physics and biophysics. Likewise chemistry is represented by such fields as biochemistry, chemical biology, geochemistry and astrochemistry. A particular example of a scientific discipline that draws upon multiple natural sciences is environmental science. This field studies the interactions of physical, chemical, geological, and biological components of the environment, with particular regard to the effect of human activities and the impact on biodiversity and sustainability. This science also draws upon expertise from other fields such as economics, law, and social sciences. A comparable discipline is oceanography, as it draws upon a similar breadth of scientific disciplines. Oceanography is sub-categorized into more specialized cross-disciplines, such as physical oceanography and marine biology. As the marine ecosystem is very large and diverse, marine biology is further divided into many subfields, including specializations in particular species | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=38890 |
Natural science There is also a subset of cross-disciplinary fields which, by the nature of the problems that they address, have strong currents that run counter to specialization. Put another way: In some fields of integrative application, specialists in more than one field are a key part of the most dialog. Such integrative fields, for example, include nanoscience, astrobiology, and complex system informatics. Earth science (also known as geoscience), is an all-embracing term for the sciences related to the planet Earth, including geology, geophysics, geochemistry, hydrology, meteorology, and oceanography. Although mining and precious stones have been human interests throughout the history of civilization, the development of the related sciences of economic geology and mineralogy did not occur until the 18th century. The study of the earth, particularly palaeontology, blossomed in the 19th century. The growth of other disciplines, such as geophysics, in the 20th century, led to the development of the theory of plate tectonics in the 1960s, which has had a similar effect on the Earth sciences as the theory of evolution had on biology. Earth sciences today are closely linked to petroleum and mineral resources, climate research and to environmental assessment and remediation | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=38890 |
Natural science Though sometimes considered in conjunction with the earth sciences, due to the independent development of its concepts, techniques and practices and also the fact of it having a wide range of sub-disciplines under its wing, the atmospheric sciences is also considered a separate branch of natural science. This field studies the characteristics of different layers of the atmosphere from ground level to the edge of the time. The timescale of the study also varies from days to centuries. Sometimes the field also includes the study of climatic patterns on planets other than earth. The serious study of oceans began in the early to mid-20th century. As a field of natural science, it is relatively young but stand-alone programs offer specializations in the subject. Though some controversies remain as to the categorization of the field under earth sciences, interdisciplinary sciences or as a separate field in its own right, most modern workers in the field agree that it has matured to a state that it has its own paradigms and practices. As such a big family of related studies spanning every aspect of the oceans is now classified under this field. Materials science is a relatively new, interdisciplinary field which deals with the study of matter and its properties; as well as the discovery and design of new materials. Originally developed through the field of metallurgy, the study of the properties of materials and solids has now expanded into all materials | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=38890 |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.