Harry DavisExplore the contribution to knowledge that one approach within Human Geography has made.IntroductionHuman 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 well-known 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 ApproachPositivism 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 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 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. ConclusionWith 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. 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 ListBarnes, T., (2004) Placing ideas: genius loci: heterotopia: and geographys quantitative revolution. Progress in Human GeographyCloke, P., Crang, P. and Goodwin, M. (2013) Introducing Human Geographies, Third Edition. Hodder EducationHubbard, P., (2005) Thinking Geographically: space, theory and contemporary human geographyPain, 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