Reduction In Science Research Articles

Two Forms of Functional Reductionism in Physics

Functional reductionism characterises inter-theoretic reduction as the recovery of the upper-level behaviour described by the reduced theory in terms of the lower-level reducing theory. For instance, finding a statistical mechanical realiser that plays the functional role of thermodynamic entropy allows to establish a reductive link between thermodynamics and statistical mechanics. This view constitutes a unique approach to reduction that enjoys a number of positive features, but has received limited attention in the philosophy of science. This paper aims to clarify the meaning of functional reductionism in science, with a focus on physics, to define both its place with respect to other approaches to reduction and its connection to ontology. To do so, we develop and explore two alternative versions of functional reductionism, called Syntactic Functional Reductionism and Semantic Functional Reductionism, that expand and improve the basic functional reductionist approach along different lines, and make clear how the approach works in practice. The former elaborates on David Lewis’ account, is connected with the syntactic view of theories, employs a logical characterisation of functional roles, and is embedded within Nagelian reductionism. The latter adopts a semantic approach to theories, spells out functional roles mainly in terms of mathematical roles within the models, and is expressed in terms of the related structuralist approach to reduction. The development of these frameworks has the final goal of advancing functional reductionism, making it a fully developed account of reduction in science.

Teachers’ Ability to Integrate Disaster Reduction in Science and Social Studies in Basic Education Schools

Teachers’ Ability to Integrate Disaster Reduction in Science and Social Studies in Basic Education Schools

Teaching and environmentalism: a deduction from values, beliefs and norms in teaching disaster risk reduction in science

ABSTRACT Background There is a somewhat common understanding that links teaching and environmentalism. This may be because schools are pioneers or are often used as platforms for many environmental advocacies. Years of research have demonstrated that teaching increases awareness and concern for the environment and encourages people to protect the environment, however there is a deficit in the literature that probed and determined which among teacher activities may be considered as pro-environmental behavior. Purpose This study attempted to determine the influence of values, beliefs and norms in teaching disaster risk reduction. This paper attempted to reflect on teaching and environmentalism as deduced from the findings and aims to stimulate and contribute to the discussion on teaching and environmentalism. Participants Data were gathered from 185 public school science teachers teaching from grades 3 to 6 under the Department of Education – Division of Biliran located in one of the highly natural hazard-vulnerable islands in the Philippines. Participants were selected through random sampling of schools. All science teachers of the schools drawn were asked to voluntarily participate in the study. Design and methods This quantitative study made use of survey design using adapted and content-validated Likert scale questionnaire on values, beliefs and norms in teaching disaster risk reduction. Data collected were analyzed through partial least squares-structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) using Smart PLS. Conclusion Results conform to the Value-Belief-Norm Theory of Environmentalism, which suggest that teacher activities pertaining to the integration and teaching of disaster risk reduction in science lie within the continuum of environmentalism, therefore, they may be considered pro-environmental behavior.

Blending the Principles of Participatory Action Research Approach and Elements of Grounded Theory in a Disaster Risk Reduction Education Case Study

This paper presents an exemplar of blending the principles of participatory action research and elements of grounded theory in a disaster risk reduction education case study. It illustrates and describes a modified methodological approach that was used during the needs’ assessment and analysis phase of a multiphase study on teaching of disaster risk reduction in science among public schools in Biliran Province, the Philippines. The approach was conceived upon considering the overarching aim of the study which is the effective, efficient, inclusive, and proactive teaching of disaster risk reduction in science, the complex nature of the disaster risk reduction education, and the multiple stakeholders involved in disaster risk reduction among public schools. Results revealed that the modified methodological approach provided a co-learning environment for both participants and researchers, created an opportunity to maximize participation toward generating knowledge, prioritizing problems, and conceptualizing solutions, strengthened the data collection and analysis process, hence ensuring quality in the entire research process, and addressed the participation issues pointed out in grounded theory studies. The modified methodological approach may be relevant and applicable to similar studies that are complex and emerging like the teaching of disaster risk reduction in science.

What is the Point of Reduction in Science?

The numerous and diverse roles of theory reduction in science have been insufficiently explored in the philosophy literature on reduction. Part of the reason for this has been a lack of attention paid to reduction2 (successional reduction)---although I here argue that this sense of reduction is closer to reduction1 (explanatory reduction) than is commonly recognised, and I use an account of reduction that is neutral between the two. This paper draws attention to the utility---and incredible versatility---of theory reduction. A non-exhaustive list of various applications of reduction in science is presented, some of which are drawn from a particular case-study, being the current search for a new theory of fundamental physics. This case-study is especially interesting because it employs both senses of reduction at once, and because of the huge weight being put on reduction by the different research groups involved; additionally, it presents some unique uses for reduction---revealing, I argue, the fact that reduction can be of specialised and unexpected service in particular scientific cases. The paper makes two other general findings: that the functions of reduction that are typically assumed to characterise the different forms of the relation may instead be understood as secondary consequences of some other roles; and that most of the roles that reduction plays in science can actually also be fulfilled by a weaker relation than (the typical understanding of) reduction.

Dominio afectivo en el aprendizaje de las matemáticas según el género de los estudiantes

The performance in mathematics, the reduction of science as a vocation in university studies, as well as the demotivation and unfavourable attitudes towards mathematics generated in Secondary Education are a reason for concern. This research focuses on the affective implications tied to learning mathematics during Secondary Education, with an insight into explanatory variables such as attitudes, motivation and beliefs and their differences according to sex. The results obtained by girls show worse motivation and mathematical self-concept, as well as a less favourable attitude towards mathematics than boys. Out of 42 beliefs about mathematics, 13 show a gender difference; 10 of which belong to the category beliefs about teaching of mathematics, and of these, 5 have median effect size.

Nagel's analysis of reduction: Comments in defense as well as critique

Despite all the criticism showered on Nagel's classic account of reduction, it meets a fundamental desideratum in an analysis of reduction that is difficult to question, namely of providing for a proper identification of the reducing theory. This is not clearly accommodated in radically different accounts. However, the same feature leads me to question Nagel's claim that the reducing theory can be separated from the putative bridge laws, and thus to question his notion of heterogeneous reduction. A further corollary to the requirement that all the necessary conditions be incorporated in an adequate formulation of the putative reducing theory is that the standard example of gas temperature is not reducible to average molecular kinetic energy. As originally conceived, Nagel's conception of reduction takes no account of approximate reasoning and this failure has certainly restricted its applicability, perhaps to the point of making it unrealistic as a model of reduction in science. I suggest approximation can be accommodated by weakening the original requirement of deduction without jeopardizing the fundamental desideratum. Finally, I turn to briefly consider the idea sometimes raised of the ontological reducibility of chemistry.

Reduction of Thermodynamics: A Few Problems

Lawrence Sklar in his book, Physics and Chance (1993), proposes a sophisticated account of reduction of thermodynamics (TD) by statistical mechanics (SM). I argue that Sklar's analysis of the alleged reduction of TD by SM is problematic in several respects. I consider a few counterexamples to show that none of what Sklar takes to be the central features of successful reduction in science (unification and identification) holds in the case of TD and SM. I suggest the broader conclusion that a more useful way of understanding the relationship between TD and SM is as collaboration and competition among alternative methodologies rather than reduction of one theory to another.

Remnants of Reductionism

Central to many issues surrounding reduction in science is the relation between a physical system and its components. In this article we examine how thermodynamic theory relates properties of whole systems to properties of their components. In order to keep the analysis general, we focus our study on universal properties like volume, heat capacity, energy and temperature. In the cases examined we find that scientific explanation requires appeal to properties of “components” that are spatially as extensive as the whole system. We discuss some implications of our study for the purported paradigmatic reductions of heat and temperature to molecular motion. We conclude that while macro systems reduce ontologically to micro components, epistemologically the reduction of theoretical concepts in general fails.

Popper's naturalized approach to the reduction of chemistry

Sir Karl Popper is one of the few authors to have discussed the reduction of chemistry. His approach consists of what I term naturalistic reduction, which I suggest bears close similarities to the way in which scientists regard reduction. The present article aims to build on Popper's insights into the nature of reduction in science and more specifically to suggest an approach to characterizing a specific sense of the notion of approximate reduction in the context of chemistry. In the course of the discussion, one of Popper's better known passages on the reduction of chemistry is analysed in some detail.

New Wave Psychophysical Reductionism and the Methodological Caveats

A number of influences have combined to make reductionism an unpopular position in recent philosophy of mind and psychology. Davidson's Principle of the Anomalousness of the Mental, the multiple realizability arguments of Putnam, Fodor, and others, and attempts to characterize supervenience or dependency as the appropriate nonreductive relation to seek between psychological and physical kinds are the most well-known objections (Kim 1989). And these have found their mark. Being a psychophysical reductionist nowadays, as Jaegwon Kim aptly puts it, a bit like being a logical positivist or a member of the Old Left-an aura of doctrinaire naivete hangs over such a person (1989, 32). This aura is mistaken, however, in light of the development over the past decade of a brand of psychophysical reductionism, built upon a novel general account of theory reduction in science (Hooker 1981; P. M. Churchland 1979, sec. 11 and chap. 4, and 1985; P. S. Churchland 1986, chaps. 7, 9; Enc 1983; Bickle 1991, 1992c). From this new wave, the reductionist thesis gets reformulated as. the broadly empirical prediction that developed psychological theories ultimately will stand in the intertheoretic reduction relation (construed in the novel fashion) to developed counterpart theories from cognitive and computational neuroscience.1 The empirical evidence mustered in defense of this prediction is drawn from work now being pursued in the relevant sciences; and some work from recent neuroscience is already demonstrating reductive potential of the relevant sort for sophisticated psychological