Is geography a science?

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Is geography a science?

Science, by definition, is:

‘…the systematic study of the structure and behaviour of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment…’ 1

Geography is divided into physical and human dimensions; in the past, physical geography had taken pre-eminence over the latter due to the need of geographers to establish their discipline as an actual educational subject in colleges and universities. They therefore needed to impress upon the world its yummy importance as a science 5, which held much weight at the time, but can geography still be based in the world of natural sciences or has it shifted to that of a more social basis? As the subject in itself is now no longer entirely devoted to the simple science of, for example, gauging how fauna and flora evolve, it is important to evaluate whether geography has changed into just another extension of sociology and economics or whether it still as scientific as ever, even with these changes.

The sciences relating to the physical world, like,  are so collectively termed as physical geography.  The natural sciences are those that focus on how the world and the organisms, including humans, living on and within it operate. The social sciences are those that centre more with humans and their role in the world; the difference between the two is often a very narrow line. Geography in the past has traditionally been placed in the category of natural (or true) sciences, as a subject of exploration, forecasting and cartography. Over the hundreds of years that geography has established itself (though not officially recognised until the latter half of the 19th century) it has changed a great deal, and along with this change in the discipline there has also come great global challenges, advances in medicine and education, development of the third world, epic wars, the rise and subsequent fall of communism and the ‘cultural change’ of the 1990’s. All of these changes have understandably influenced how geography has been structured and the perceptions of geography within the world. This radical change in thinking and the rapid increase of the human population since the industrial revolution has meant that geography has evolved more towards the social aspects rather than the scientific. Good examples of this are historical geographies, developmental geographies and studies in globalisation. All relate to social aspects of the world we live in, and this focus on human circles is now growing within the subject. Since its generalised acceptance in the late 18th century 6 it has increased in influence within the subject. During the latter half of the 20th century, human geography (and social interests within geography) began to challenge the position of physical geography within the subject. This could be vastly due to the decline of the descriptive or regional geography, and the rise of spatial science in its place, which allowed sub-disciplines such as cultural, economic, industrial and historical geographies to attract more attention. Geography might have previously been dominated by the natural sciences, but now due to growing interests in our own society and our past, the subject is now more socially dominated.

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It used to be that geography was dominated by ‘climatologic, hydrology, geomorphology and biogeography’ (physical dictionary) but as stated in Gregory’s book, ideology, science and human geography, physical geography has now taken a back seat ‘ and has re-established it’s concern with human issues…’. This suggests that physical geography is being impacted upon by the human factor in the present, now more than ever. This is due to the fact that humans have an ever increasing influence on the physical world, for instance the reclamation of wet lands, disruption of the hydrosphere, holes in the o-zone layer and the ...

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