Harry Davis

Explore the contribution to knowledge that one approach within

Human Geography has made.
Introduction
Human Geography is a phrase that covers an abundance of different topics and
studies. These studies lead Human Geographers to discover different aspects of
the world. The different studies make Human Geographers analyse information
and research methods in a different way to others. Although there are many wellknown definitions of Geography, the most agreed with is geography is
concerned to provide accurate, orderly, and rational description and
interpretation of the variable character of the Earths surface (Hartshorne
1959 cited by Desforges 2014)
Exploring the contribution to knowledge. Information becomes knowledge
when it is shaped, organised and embedded in some context that has a purpose
that leads one to understand something about the world (Postman, 1999) .
Postmanss definition can be applied to Human Geography and the approachs
contribution towards it. The information discovered by a particular approach that
allows Geographer and Scientists to discover more about the planet and social
world.
Each approach makes a different contribution to Human Geography over time, by
producing differing knowledge about the world and adapting previous
approaches to modernise Geography and allowing it to develop. The particular
approach that I will be focusing on in this essay, scientific approach which I will
illustrate mainly through Positivism, a particular period in the scientific approach
and how it has contributed to the present day. I will identify the key
characteristics of the approach and how it has been effective. Also by contrasting
it with two other approaches, the Regional and Humanistic, including the
criticisms, as well as how it has in fact used these approaches to use as its
foundations for its own approach.
Key characteristics of Scientific Approach
Positivism was a large part in the Scientific Approach to Geography. Introduced
by Arthur Comte (1798-1857). It can be defined as a theoretical approach to
human geography, characterized by the adoption of a scientific approach in
which theories/models derived from observations are empirically verified through
scientific methods to produce spatial laws.
Arguably, Positivism was most effective and influential from the end of WW2 to
the 1960s. Aitken (2005) states Positivism is a set of philosophical approaches
that seeks to apply scientific principles and methods, drawn from natural and
hard sciences, to social phenomena in order to explain them. Positivism is
characterised by its hypothesis testing, inductive and deductive reasoning and
the search for laws to explain the social world. There are many geographers and
researchers that believe Positivism has made the greatest impact on the study of
Human Geography. Schaefer (1958) believed Human Geography should not be a

Harry Davis
humanities based discipline which describes, but a social science discipline which
adopts the philosophies and methods of the natural sciences, to provide
explanations and laws about the social world. This shows the effect that
positivism had on some geographers; that it should become a factual science
that should do more than describe but explain these descriptions and justify
them by backing them up with scientific laws and methodologies. Additionally,
falsification was a large contribution to Positivism and scientific approach,
falsification involves checking a theory against evidence that could disprove it
rather than collecting and accumulating supporting evidence for the theory
(Hubbard, p.29, 2005). Falsification allowed geographers to easily disprove
statements and findings instead of trying to support these ideas.
The Quantitative Revolution which occurred from the 1950s-1960 was a major
contribution to the Scientific Approach, where the underlying principles and
practices of geography were transformed with description and replaced with
explanation (Aitken, 2005). The quantitative revolution revealed a new
continent to geographers, a world not delineated to them before; a world marked
by nested hexagons, functional Centrality, bid-rent curves, isodapanes, trend
surface coefficients and computers larger than living rooms (Barnes, 2004). The
main significance of the Quantitative Revolution occurred after the Revolution
was in full effect, with the aftermath producing a greater use in technologies
such as computers that are very common in Geography today and possibly
contributed to the invention of Geographic Information Systems (GIS).
How was Scientific Approach different from the other approaches?
The scientific approach is much different to other approaches such as the
Regional and Systematic approaches. Regional approaches identifies its
knowledge around segments of the Earths surface (Desforges, 2014), regions.
Although the Systematic approach also looks at the Earths surface and in this
way they can be seen as being similar to one another, the Systematic approach
looks for a specific theme and trace it across the world (Desforges, 2014). Both
these approaches are much dissimilar to the scientific approach. Positivism and
Regional approach are very contrasting approaches to Human Geography.
Geographers who thought Geography should be much more of a spatial science
disagreed with the Regional approach and leaned much more heavily with the
mathematics side of Positivism.
This can also be found on the characteristics of each approach. The regional
approach focused more on acquiring qualitative data whereas with positivisms
hypothesis testing and scientific factor, aimed to instead for quantitative data.
The regional approach which Kimble (cited by Desforges) (1951) argued: the
region is an 18th century concept and, in the modern world it is the links in the
landscapes rather than the breaks which impress. .Systematic approach and
Positivism can be linked to a greater extent than Regional and Positivism. The
systematic approach and Positivism both searched for laws to explain the social
world (Desforges, 2014). These approaches developed the regional approach

Harry Davis
which tended to focus on description with little emphasis on explanation. The
scientific laws and methodologies allowed hypothesis and statements to be
backed up by facts and therefore increasing explanation to the already existing
description that the regional effect had.
What are the criticisms of the Scientific Approach Contributions?
Although Positivism has progressed Geography to more than a description from
the Regional approach like all contributions, it has been criticised. Many
geographers believe that the hypothesis testing and laws ignores non-economic
aspects of decision making. The social structure, has been eclipsed by the spatial
structure, without the proper hypotheses testing being used the scientific
strategy could be used improperly and negatively impact on Geography.
Robert Sack (1980), positivist geography was a form of spatial fetishism,
focusing on the spatial at the expense of everything else (Valentine, 2003, p.26).
Sacks view on the downfall of the fetishism was also that of Marxist and
radical critiques by rejecting issues such as politics and religion and trying to
explain the world through observable facts, radical critics noted that spatial
science was limited to certain kinds of questions and was further limited to
certain kinds of questions and was further limited in its ability to answer them
(Valentine, 2003, p.26). The criticisms of Sack and Marxist and radical critiques
were not questioning the methods and contribution of Positivism to Geography
but pointing out that it cannot in fact be used in every given scenario that Comte
wanted this approach to have.
On the contrary to these critiques, radical and humanistic geographers believed
Geographers, it was argued, are participants in the world, with their own
personal views and politics, not privileged observers who could shed these
values whilst undertaking there research (Gregory, 1978). Although this
argument may seem valid, their position as radical and humanistic geographers
seems to be bias towards their own approaches and neglecting this more recent
approach that could shape the geography they know it to much more of a
spatial science. But that is the difficulty in accepting the criticisms to be truthful
from one approach to the other, as geographers and researchers would want
their contribution to geography to be the most valid concept and still be adopted
in modern geography.
Conclusion
With all aspects of the approaches taken into consideration, despite the
criticisms that it has faced, Positivism and the scientific approach has
contributed to Geography significantly in the past 50 years and is even
influential on todays geography. The foundations for GIS derived from Positivism
and the quantitative data that it based its research around. The Quantitative
Revolution was the for-front in the development of the basics of the Regional
approach being only a description and providing it with an explanation and
reasoning, backed up with theories based on observations.

Harry Davis
Positivism built on previous knowledge and contribution from other approaches.
The Systematic approach had the same intentions of creating laws to explain the
social world as the positivism approach and they only differed through
Systematic focusing on the natural world, whilst contrastingly, positivism
applied laws to the social world where much of the critique came doesnt
acknowledge peoples beliefs, values, opinions, feelings and so on, and their role
in shaping everyday geographies (Valentine, 2003, p.26). These approaches
also developed the Regional Approach, which is thought to be the historical
contribution to geography and hasnt modernised with geography. Arguably, it
has transformed Human Geography completely into a social science, before the
1970s, very few Human Geographers identified their discipline as a social
science: two decades later, most did (Johnston, 2003, cited Cloke, 2013, p.106).
Positivism being apparent in the modern 21st centuries in many ways, identifies
the impact its had on Geography and the impact that itll have on the future.

Reference List
Barnes, T., (2004) Placing ideas: genius loci: heterotopia: and geographys
quantitative revolution. Progress in Human Geography
Cloke, P., Crang, P. and Goodwin, M. (2013) Introducing Human Geographies,
Third Edition. Hodder Education
Hubbard, P., (2005) Thinking Geographically: space, theory and contemporary
human geography
Pain, R., Gough, J., Mowl, G., Barke, M., Macfarlene, R. and Fuller, D. (2001)
Introducing social geographies. London: Arnold.
Valentine, S.A and G. (2003) Theory and Practice in human geography. United
States: Sage Publications