Dominant group/Proof of concept

In Kenya, the Kikuyu are one of the more dominant tribes in government and social standing, though once displaced from their native lands. Credit: Angela Sevin.

"The original inquiry simply started out as curiosity about a phrase that appeared in a number of wikipedia articles yet stood unwritten about."

This effort resulted in an AfD that ultimately included a number of subarticles. Such peer review indicated at that time this curiosity is best directed toward an original research effort.

To begin such a project, this early proposal created a proof of concept (phase I).

The form of this proof of concept proposal follows the suggestion at research proposal.

"[E]ach hypothesis in the proposal is faced by any proposal anywhere until appropriate work (proof of concept) has been performed."

The proof of concept period is the most vulnerable time for any proposal for original research. During this period, requests for peer review are made, and criticism can result in defeat, refinement, or improvement.

Dominant groups

Main resource: Dominant group

Here, evidence is presented that demonstrates dominant group is a scientific and technical term in the natural, social, and physical sciences.

Topics

Main resources: Dominant group/Topics and Topics

Within many articles of original research, specifically publications in traditional journals, are the two words "dominant" and "group", juxtaposed as dominant group.

"[T]he meaning of "dominant group" isn't always obvious from one field to the next and it has a long and varied history probably most associated with the history of evolution at least in the beginning."

From its apparent origins in Kirby's An Introduction to Entomology of 1826, as the plural "dominant groups", the term has radiated to additional subject areas, either carrying the same relative meaning or acquiring a new one. Although perhaps initially a concept within the natural theological (High Church Hutchinsonian) creation theory, the term progressed into Darwin's theory of natural selection, survival of the fittest. It survived while this theory, or at least much of it, has apparently gone extinct. The term resurfaced again in the theory of evolutionary progressivism, where here too it survived as another evolutionary theory apparently has gone extinct.

It now functions approximately the same for the most recent theory of evolution, modern evolutionary synthesis.

Proposals

Main resources: Income/Funding/Proposals and Funding proposals

Research purpose: is this only a juxtaposition of two words or are the authors using a term that has experimental, observational, or theoretical significance and implications? This effort involves exploration of individual articles to determine (hopefully) context and definition or meaning, description using quotes by the authors to indicate use of the phrase, explanation for the presence of the two words together, and prediction that uses possible meanings, if any, for the 'term'.

Research questions:

• What is the nature of the relationship between 'dominant' and 'group'?
• What is the difference between 'group' and 'dominant'?
• What is the effect of 'group' on 'dominant' and 'dominant' on 'group'?
• Are the two words found together in dictionaries or glossaries?

Hypotheses:

• Null hypothesis: there is no significance or special meaning of the two words: 'group' and 'dominant' appearing juxtaposed in a sentence or figure caption in a refereed journal article.
• Obvious hypothesis: the only meaning of 'dominant group' is a group that dominates.
• Hoax hypothesis: the principal investigator (PI) is perpetrating an elaborate (or maybe not so elaborate) hoax on the Wikiversity community by passing off nonsense as real research and fact.
• Article credit hypothesis: the PI has already published a refereed article in an archival journal on this subject and is including the effort here and on Wikipedia for article notoriety and publicity or to receive grant money for preexisting research.
• Term hypothesis: the two words together as 'dominant group' is a significant term in the scholarly literature with meaning and necessity.

Research method:

• Small-group study: once the phrase is found to occur within an individual subject area a small group of publications is chosen for analysis.
• Survey: Google Scholar purports to contain scholarly research articles. A survey of articles using different word combinations may prove insightful. Ditto with Wikipedia and Wikiversity.
• Field experiment: testing each hypothesis and other possibilities during the course of investigating possible causal relationships among words similar to 'dominant', e.g., dominance, dominating, and dominate, 'group' such as 'type', 'class', or 'category'.

Sampling: Google Scholar, Wikipedia, and Wikiversity may serve as a target population from which data can be collected.

Data analysis: looking at and summarizing data with the intent to extract useful information, make inferences, and develop conclusions.

Research ethics: an obvious risk is a bias toward significance for a term 'dominant group', when clearly there is none, to be determined. Benefit: maybe the authors have a special meaning and significance in mind, understood by colleagues who perform such research, but unknown to the casual observer or reader.

Disclosure: an early article exploring the phrase 'dominant group' was AfD and deleted from Wikipedia as original research or personal essay. A second article, probably at least 51% different was deleted by the Administrator who deleted the first. Voting on the first version: six (delete) to four (keep).

Projects

Main resources: Income/Projects and Projects

Steps or subarticles in the research project follow the proposal as a guide.

The project involves

1. definitions of various types per the theory of definition to define dominant group independent of subject,
2. subject subpages which contain examples and analyses,
3. support subpages such as this one, including attribution and copyright,
4. learning resources to contribute to Wikiversity schools where possible,
5. a search for journals where features of the research can be published,
6. obtaining funding to put the accomplishments in primary source(s), and
7. phase II to accomplish above objectives.

Relationships

Main resources: Dominant group/Relationships and Relationships

By inspection of the phrase 'dominant group', an initial relationship is an adjective modifying a noun. The reverse, 'group dominant' suggests a dominant of or within a group. The two words in this order occur in about 1,760 articles on Google Scholar, eight articles on Wikipedia, and one article on Wikiversity. In Feuer, Avital (2008) Who does this language belong to? Personal narratives of language claim and identity is "Most studies in this field situate the individual between the in-group ethnic minority and the out-group dominant majority as individuals". Seven of the eight articles on Wikipedia have "group's dominant" as the phrase. In the remainder, Lupara, "It is traditionally associated with Cosa Nostra, the Italian organized crime group dominant in Sicily for their use of it in vendetta".

Differences

Main resources: Dominant group/Differences and Differences

Differences to be investigated initially are for the words in juxtaposition: 'dominant group'.

Juxtaposition effect

Main resources: Dominant group/Juxtapositions and Juxtapositions

The earlier theory of evolutionary progressivism puts forth several concepts:

1. "a series of progressive changes",
2. "dominant life forms",
3. "dominant group",
4. "successive replacement",
5. "new dominant type ... supplanted the previous dominant type", and
6. each new dominant type is "an improvement over the previous type."

Both "dominant life forms" and dominant group are undefined within the theory of evolutionary progressivism. Apparently, all that remains of this theory are these two concepts.

Group juxtaposition

The use of the constituent dominant group may result from a change in the juxtaposition of the word "group", "On the few occasions that discussion diverted from the dominant consensus, awareness of alternative languages and logics was vital in establishing a consistent oppositional argument. In the following exchange, for example, John refers to an ‘ecocentric’ ethic to argue against the prevailing logic of the group". A later portion of a sentence "John eventually acquiesced to the dominant group logic," suggests synonymy between "prevailing logic" and "dominant ... logic", where "of the group" has been replaced not with "group dominant logic" or "dominant logic of the group" but with "dominant group logic". The phrase "dominant consensus" suggests a subgroup that may be a majority of the group; hence, a dominant group.

Group of dominants

In an article discussing dominance interactions in polygynous ants, the authors divided the ants into two categories: dominants and subordinates. "[D]ominants performed antennal boxing and biting, while subordinates did not." "[D]ominants ... perform 'sexual calling'". "[D]ominants mated with foreign males". "None of the subordinate workers mated". "[A]n increase in dominance interactions ... [led] to a new group of dominants that eventually laid reproductive eggs." "Only workers that belong to the dominant group will mate and reproduce sexually". For this particular article, the association of "group of dominants" and dominant group suggests synonymy.

In an article about bird species, there is the sentence, "The group of dominants included species that formed over 5% of the whole community." Later in the article is the portion of a sentence, "The dominant group, over 5% of the whole community was formed by six species". This example also suggests synonymy.

From a third article is "The fights would take place between those without feeding positions and those with, i.e. between a group of subdominants and a group of dominants." "The birds occupying feeding positions would be inside the circle while those without feeding positions would be outside the circle. This means that the dominant group were close together in a confined circle while the subdominants were more widely separated around the outside of that circle." Here again, synonymy between dominant group and "group of dominants" is likely.

Meaning of a juxtaposition

"Of the meaning of 'dominant group' he writes: 'Now when a technical word is coined to designate some non-linguistic phenomenon, or when a word (such as 'dominant') is taken over from ordinary speech and used to designate the phenomenon, a new semantic rule is required. Otherwise, the range of application of the word will be unspecified.'" Here, the quote within the quote and the "he writes" refer to Goudge. At the very least, "the range of application of the word" may be unspecified.

Each subject area within which the term dominant group is used has the same problem: "unless and until a rigorous definition of the term 'dominant group' is rendered, the argument fails to establish its conclusion due to the fact that one of its premises is meaningless."

Subject area

Main resources: Dominant group/Fields and Fields

As the small group study of anthropology suggests, the phrase or term 'dominant group' occurs occasionally in the archival literature of linguistic anthropology and cultural anthropology.

The phrase 'dominant group' seems to have its earliest readily accessible origin in the 1859 book by Darwin on the origin of species. While written records that have been found through archeological effort date much further back, this use is 152 B.P. and may qualify as a topic in the history of science. Using Google scholar with "dominant group" + "history of science" yields 457 articles. None of these contain the phrase, dominant group, in the title.

Although the phrase enjoys current popularity in sociology dating from about 2004, sources are somewhat readily available to internet inquiry in additional subject areas at least to 1859.

The third area of possible interest is linguistics. Here the interest is to verify that 'dominant group' is either an arbitrary association of two words (adjective + noun), an arbitrary association of two nouns (dominance + group), where the first has been turned into an adjective, or a real term being used with deliberate meaning and intent. On Google scholar, "dominant group" + linguistics yields about 17,200 articles.

Proliferation

Main resources: Dominant group/Proliferation and Proliferation

The constituent 'dominate group' is found in the context of articles from many subject areas, where its use in the area defines the relation between members of the group, or between the dominant group and another group. "[A] dominant group need not be the numerical majority", though it often is. The category of dominant group may have unclear limits and vary from one geographical region (or subject area of interest) to another, as the concept of the dominant group has evolved over time, due to "changing criteria for dominance". Each subject area within which the term dominant group is used has the same problem: "unless and until a rigorous definition of the term 'dominant group' is rendered, the argument fails to establish its conclusion due to the fact that one of its premises is meaningless."

With respect to the former Wikipedia entry 'dominant group (art)':

1. "From what I can tell, this article is an application of a theory without specifically linking the theory with the subject the theory is to be applied on. In other words, I don't find the sources to truly support the article. I am also concerned about Original Research and Essayism. I don't feel that this article is an appropriate topic for an encyclopedia."
2. "These articles have to be seen in the context of the Wikiversity article dominant group; they essentially repeat the text of the article deleted at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Dominant group, with some specific additions. ... Personally, i think the best way to proceed would be with a rewritten article on Dominant Group. Since it's protected, this would have to be done in user space, and taken to deletion review as a sufficient revision to warrant another AfD on the general article. As wide a range of third-party sources specifically using the term in the meaning presented would be needed, not the ones such as Darwin from which the concept was ultimately derived. (Most of the items listed at the AfD were general uses in Wikipedia articles in the non-specific meaning of the phrase, as a group which in one or another way is dominant, not as a fixed term referring to a particular way of looking at things. I reserve judgment on whether this is possible until i see the proposed references. (the two cited, Travis in evolutionary biology and Millet in sociology, seem to be talking about rather different subjects--travis about a somewhat outmoded way of looking at evolution ("the era of seed-ferns" etc.) and Millet comparing contemporary social groupings. If there is a specific underlying general concept it would need articles discussing it in that light. Based on the degree of concept-stretching in the present and past articles, I have some doubt it will be possible, but I cannot rule out the possibility. Now, my reason for saying delete for this article is, quite simply, that none of the references talk about the concept specifically in art. Gramsci is talking about social roles in general, and I'd need to study his work in some detail to see how he uses the term--if it should be a major distinct concept of such an eminent thinker, it would be notable, but not about art specifically & still would not justify this article. The Jetten article is talking only about body ornament, not art--that tattoos are used for group identification is a specific subject, but probably not worth a separate article, but from the quotes i do not see the term being used in a specific meaning there, and, even if it were, it's not by itself enough to support the article. The material on art in India is talking about the role of art in group formation, and I do not think uses dominant group as a specific concept, and Kingsley's article does not appear to have been actually published."
3. "As noted above, I feel the article should be deleted (since the sources don't really support the specific, precise topic written). However, I agree with a re-writing of Dominant Group -- in fact, I had assumed there was an article already."
4. "Well, the correct forum for requesting an undeletion of an article is Deletion Review. It *does* appear that there are some reliable, secondary sources on this "dominant group" theory. From the sources you've provided, I could nominally support an undeletion. However, I am just one editor amongst many and I do not represent but a wave in the ocean of consensus (I'm not sure why I just wrote that little comment, but the pithy remarks above inspired me.) Secondly, the article should be more concise and on-topic - no synthesis or original research. The article should reflect an encyclopaedic summary of what the theory is, who supports it, etc. The article should not, in my opinion, read like an essay. To emphasize, I write here only about the original "dominant group" article. I unfortunately still feel that all of the sub "dominant group" articles (i.e. "Dominant Group (art) and similar) should be deleted. Finally, I suggest finding a willing editor to help outline the topic in your userspace before trying to gain consensus to reintroduce "dominant group" to the article space. Regards - and I hope you find this helpful".
5. "To begin, I still agree with DGG that Dominant group (art) should be deleted. I also agree that there may be some hope for Dominant group over at Deletion Review after the that article undergo a rigorous rewrite. Firstly, the article should read like an encylopedia entry. For example comparison, lets us take a peek at Hungarian Revolution of 1956. The first line reads: "The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 <snip> was a spontaneous nationwide revolt against the government..." Ok. That's a nice start. So, applying that sort of lead to Dominant Group might give us something along these lines: "Dominant group is a theory which...etc...etc...The theory, as explained by x attempts to do y." I think that style of writing might be palatable. As it stands now -and forgive me for being bold- the Dominant group (art) article reads a bit like an essay. Now, if you succeed in getting the main "Dominant group" article into the namespace (no small task, of course), then I believe the appropriate course of action would be to add the particular applications (like art) as subsections to that main article. Again I post the disclaimer that I am just one editor and I can not guarantee that our fellow editors would agree; further, I am far from literate in the workings of deletion review. Their practices/rules/etc are beyond my ken."
6. "in fact, by a collection of unrelated quotes which are not really relevant to the article topic). Indeed, a quick search suggests that there is no specific "dominant group theory of art" for this article to be about."
7. "The material appears to be entirely synthesised original research, including the very idea that dominant group is a defined concept in art: thus the need for deletion rather than any possible rewrite. The latest intro by the sole author of the article highlights the fact that this very general term is used diversely in art ... [W]e do not and should not have articles about flexible alternative, major result or even original idea (yes, that goes to Originality; by that token it would be fine if these dominant group links each redirected to their own appropriate version of Dominance - but for art, there apparently isn't one) although such phrases would frequently appear in books, journals etc. within any given intellectual domain, including in art and art theory. Of course, sometimes such apparently general phrases have very specific meanings - consider Main sequence in astronomy - but then we see that it is a very well defined term, and hence justifying the existence of the article. This is not the case for dominant group in art."

Dictionary

Main resources: Dominant group/Obvious hypothesis and Obvious hypothesis

Searching various combinations of terms may prove that dominant group occurs in no dictionary. Usually dominant group is only used within the definition of other terms. For example, a "Keyword(s):" search using "dominant group" and "Title: Dictionary" of questia (http://www.questia.com/SM.qst?act=adv) yields seventeen different dictionaries, wherein dominant group occurs only in the definition or description of other terms.

Computing dictionary

Main resources: Dominant group/Obvious hypothesis and Obvious hypothesis

From the Free OnLine Dictionary Of Computing, "Sorry, the term dominant group is not in the dictionary. Check the spelling and try removing suffixes like "-ing" and "-s"."

Medical dictionary

Main resources: Dominant group/Obvious hypothesis and Obvious hypothesis

One dictionary has been found which does contain a definition of dominant group: "a social group that controls the value system and rewards in a particular society." Mosby's Medical Dictionary.

Def. "a social group that controls the value system and rewards in a particular society" is called a dominant group (or a dominant social group).

On Google scholar is "[CITATION] 1.2 A Practical Medical Dictionary (1911) TL Stedman… - The nature of difference: sciences of race …, 2009 - The MIT Press" that contains "Dictionary of Anthropology" + "dominant group" in some form.

Original research vs. metadefinition

Main resources: Dominant group/Metadefinition and Metadefinition

WP:NAD. The term or phrase 'dominant group' occurs in no dictionary because it cannot be included in one. It's best described as having a metadefinition. On WikiPedia there is an article entitled, "Original research", wherein is the following, "The purpose of the original research is to produce new knowledge, rather than to present the existing knowledge in a new form (e.g., summarized or classified)." This effort falls under presenting existing knowledge in a new form (classified with a summary of usages within a subject area), at least for WikiPedia. Is it encyclopedic? It should be. I'm writing about specific uses within subject areas, hopefully in an encyclopedic format. The concept of a metadefinition has been around for a while, but I wrote that article while trying to deal with what 'dominant group' is. When I was looking at the term 'dominant group', including historical usage, I thought it might fit under disambiguation, see WP:Disambiguation, or polysemy, but it does not. Individual words usually do not have a metadefinition, but phrases apparently can. Hope this helps. Suggestions on improving the encyclopedic format are welcome. Authors use the phrase to make a significant point about some influential facet of their research results.

Webster's dictionary

Main resources: Dominant group/Obvious hypothesis and Obvious hypothesis

The 'term', dominant group, is not listed in Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary.

Wiktionary

Main resources: Dominant group/Obvious hypothesis and Obvious hypothesis

Searching Wiktionary with the phrase, "dominant group" yields "There were no results matching the query." Without quotes yields among others:

• alpha male: "The dominant male in a group of animals."
• leader: "The dominant animal in a pack of animals, such as wolves or lions."
• Gurkha: "A member of the dominant ethnic group in Nepal, with a Himalayan diaspora."

Null hypothesis

Main resources: Dominant group/Null hypothesis and Null hypothesis

Specifically, there is no significance or special meaning of the two words: 'group' and 'dominant' appearing juxtaposed in a sentence or figure caption in a refereed journal article as dominant group.

Dominant group occurs in no dictionary or glossary.

An example of two words juxtaposed that when combined within quotes produces no articles containing it from Google Scholar is "dominant pickle": "Your search - "dominant pickle" - did not match any articles." Of course, on the full web some seventy-two occurrences are brought up with most using "dominant pickle" and a few "dominant, pickle".

Any two words in juxtaposition such as "of the" may not be an encyclopedic subject. "Of the" is in some 7,410,000 articles on Google Scholar, yet on WikiPedia "of the" does not occur due to restrictions placed on the Search engine.

Obvious vs. null hypothesis

Main resources: Dominant group/Obvious hypothesis and Obvious hypothesis

Dominant group means a group that is dominant. "Dominant group", "dominant type", "dominant class", and "dominant category" occur on Google Scholar, but "dominant pickle" does not. If this is true, then the null hypothesis is false.

Constituent phrase

Main resources: Dominant group/Obvious hypothesis and Obvious hypothesis

The constituent 'dominant group' occasionally appears in article titles, suggesting some notability:

1. "Dominant Group Ethnic Identity in the United States: The Role of “Hidden’ Ethnicity in Intergroup Relations",
2. "Globular cluster luminosity functions and the Hubble constant from WFPC2 imaging: the dominant group elliptical NGC 5846",
3. "Studies on the bacterial flora of the alimentary tract of pigs. II. Streptococci: selective enumeration and differentiation of the dominant group",
4. "White selves: conceptualizing and measuring a dominant-group identity".

Specifically, Refdoc.fr lists 397 article titles where some contain the phrase dominant group or in several additional forms such as "dominant-group", "spiral-dominant group", "non-dominant/dominant group".

Since dominant group is a constituent phrase in at least one context, the null hypothesis is unsupported.

Dictionary definition

Main resources: Dominant group/Obvious hypothesis and Obvious hypothesis

One dictionary definition of dominant group is "a social group that controls the value system and rewards in a particular society." Mosby's Medical Dictionary.

Applying the metadefinition of a dominant group to the Mosby's Medical Dictionary definition yields

1. relation: dominant social groups,
2. population: 'a particular society',
3. basis or 'criteria for dominance': 'controls the value system and rewards', and
4. country (of the dominant group): 'in their own countries'.

An alternative might be

1. relation: dominant social groups,
2. population: social groups,
3. basis or 'criteria for dominance': 'controls the value system and rewards', and
4. country (of the dominant group): 'a particular society'.

An argument could be made that a particular society is a collection of social groups and a country is a particular society by synonymy if a single individual can exist in a collection of social groups.

The locating of the phrase dominant group in at least one dictionary invalidates the null hypothesis.

Obvious hypothesis

Main resources: Dominant group/Obvious hypothesis and Obvious hypothesis

"Athough it's clear that a dominant group is a group that dominates other groups it's not clear that the expression has some meaning beyond that obvious one."

"This is not a topic, it's someone using a search engine to find the phrase "dominant group" and tossing a lot of unrelated stuff into an article."

""[D]ominant group" is a phrase in the English language that has its normal meaning; it is not a special concept in relation to astronomy."

""[D]ominant group" is a phrase in the English language that has its normal meaning; it is not a special concept in relation to extinction." Although "normal meaning" is unstated and unreferenced, if the 'obvious hypothesis' meaning is meant then this anecdotal comment supports the 'obvious hypothesis'.

"Searching does not suggest this combination of terms is a notable topic."

Null hypothesis vs. obvious hypothesis

Main resources: Dominant group/Obvious hypothesis and Obvious hypothesis

"[T]aking a meaningless congeries of search-engine results that happen to use the two words "dominant" and "group" in a row, and assuming a priori that the coincidence of words has some deep structural meaning, stitching it all together with meaningless nonce-words like "metadefinition"!" If this were true, the 'null hypothesis' would invalidate the 'obvious hypothesis'; however, the 'null hypothesis' has been invalidated.

Alternate meaning

Main resources: Dominant group/Obvious hypothesis and Obvious hypothesis

From the definition of 'dominant' as a noun, combined with group, 'dominant group' may mean 'a group of dominants'.

This suggests at least two definitions, which may constitute disproof of the 'obvious hypothesis'.

Another possibility is "a group which in one or another way is dominant", which may be "not as a fixed term referring to a particular way of looking at things." If this is a third meaning, then it goes towards disproving the obvious hypothesis.

"[A] dominant group need not be the numerical majority", though it often is. This is an alternate meaning if not specifically a definition that conflicts with "a group that dominates".

The category of dominant group may have unclear limits and vary from one geographical region (or subject area of interest) to another, as the concept of the dominant group has evolved over time, due to "changing criteria for dominance". This also conflicts with "a group that dominates", which indicates no variance.

General definition

Main resources: Dominant group/Obvious hypothesis and Obvious hypothesis

"[T]he general definition of "dominant group," ie. the sociological definition, not to some definition specific to the field of art." If this definition can be found, it is a third definition that goes against the obvious hypothesis.

"Insofar as it is a thing, it's the sociological term - economics does not have its own definition". Anecdotal, but it goes against the obvious hypothesis. Same individual as the above comment.

"The basic idea of dominance is already covered at dominance (ecology)."

"The IP is right that insofar as this is a topic rather than a two-word phrase that appears in some evolutionary biology articles". Refers to a second anecdotal opinion (just above), not in agreement with the 'obvious hypothesis'.

"[U]nless and until a rigorous definition of the term 'dominant group' is rendered, the argument fails to establish its conclusion due to the fact that one of its premises is meaningless." Travis' comment also conflicts with the obvious hypothesis of "a group that dominates". Dominant group is referred to as a "term" that lacks a "rigorous definition" rendering it "meaningless". While a bit of a conflict in itself, the use of "term" invalidates the 'null hypothesis', use of "meaningless" invalidates the 'obvious hypothesis'. As the 'null hypothesis' is invalidated, "dominant group" appears to be less than a "term" since it apparently lacks a "rigorous definition".

Mosby's dictionary definition

Main resources: Dominant group/Obvious hypothesis and Obvious hypothesis

The locating of at least one dictionary definition: "a social group that controls the value system and rewards in a particular society." Mosby's Medical Dictionary. is not identical nor directly synonymous to the 'obvious hypothesis' meaning. This invalidates the obvious hypothesis.

Dominant group as a constituent phrase appears to be less than a "term" but definitely more than the 'obvious hypothesis'.

Hoax hypothesis

Main resources: Dominant group/Hoax hypothesis and Hoax hypothesis

Specifically, the principal investigator (PI) is perpetrating an elaborate (or maybe not so elaborate) hoax on the Wikiversity community by passing off nonsense as real research and fact.

There are three alternatives at least:

1. the principal investigator (PI) is deliberately perpetrating a hoax,
2. the PI doesn't know the answer of what 'dominant group' is, and this naivete appears to others as a hoax. This is like the person who found the 'Piltdown man' being different from the hoaxer who put the bones together and 'planted them' for someone to find, or
3. no hoax - waste of time and effort.

Fact 1: dominant group is a concept, albeit undefined, within an earlier theory of evolutionary progressivism, should begin to reduce the probability of any kind of hoax.

Fact 2: dominant group is referred to as a "technical word" by a philosopher, albeit not in a rigorous effort to establish the phrase as a technical word, should reduce the probability a bit further.

Fact 3: dominant group has been found in a dictionary to have a definition, specifically within Mosby's Medical Dictionary, for a subject area, should reduce the probability even further.

Fact 4: dominant group has been called a 'keyword' in a journal article title, decreases it yet further.

Fact: 5: dominant group does pass constituency tests indicating that its use is important to context, continues the decrease.

Fact 6: dominant groups, albeit the plural form, occurring as an author chosen keyword for a refereed journal publication, in social psychology, should push the probability well below 50%.

Fact 7: dominant groups, albeit the plural form, occurring as an author chosen keyword for a second refereed journal publication, in plant biology, should lower the probability further.

Fact 8: dominant group appears to be a test perhaps of significance in vertebrate diversity, should reduce the probability to near 25% or less.

Fact 9: "this is actually a topic in sociology/anthropology". Anecdotal, but probably a fact.

Fact 10: "the general definition of "dominant group," ie. the sociological definition, not to some definition specific to the field of art." Anecdotal, from the same person as Fact 9.

Fact 11: the use of the phrase "social group" in Mosby's Medical Dictionary definition: "a social group that controls the value system and rewards in a particular society." supports the unsolicited, anecdotal comment. This should reduce the probability of a hoax to less than 10%.

Fact 12: the 'null hypothesis' has been invalidated.

Fact 13: another unsolicited, anecdotal comment that dominant group is "a group which in one or another way is dominant", which may be "not as a fixed term referring to a particular way of looking at things."

Fact 14: "The IP is right that insofar as this is a topic rather than a two-word phrase that appears in some evolutionary biology articles". Refers to a third unsolicited, anecdotal opinion.

Fact 15: "On our use of the term, a dominant group need not be a numerical majority (although it often will be)."

Fact 16: "the category of "dominant group" has unclear limits and varies from one geographical region to another."

Fact 17: "unless and until a rigorous definition of the term 'dominant group' is rendered, the argument fails to establish its conclusion due to the fact that one of its premises is meaningless." Dominant group is referred to as a "term".

Fact 18: as the 'null hypothesis' is invalidated, dominant group appears to be less than a "term" since it apparently lacks a "rigorous definition" but is more than meaningless.

Fact 19: the 'obvious hypothesis' has been invalidated.

Fact 20: dominant group is a contributory constituent in the author chosen keyword, "enzymes, involved in phosphoryl transfer reactions - dominant group among monovalent cation–activated enzymes", in the subject area of protein complexes (biochemistry).

Fact 21: dominant group is used as a contributory adjective in the author chosen keyword, "Dominant-group cartels", in the subject area of economics.

Fact 22: dominant group is used as a portion of an author chosen keyword, "dominant group control", in business.

Fact 23: dominant group has been specialized to "dominant ingroup" in the author chosen keyword, "dominant ingroup-outgroup distinction - conditions of novelty or uncertainty". This should put the probability of a hoax to less than 5%.

Fact 24: dominant group has been indicated as an alternative in the author chosen keyword, "ethnic slurs - use by dominant or colonial groups", in history.

Fact 25: a specialized or specific type of dominant group has been mentioned in the author chosen keyword, "cultural imperialism theory and dominant sociopolitical group influences"

Fact 26: dominant group has been found by Google scholar search as a contributory constituent in about 66,800 articles, patents, and citations.

Fact 27: at least seventeen different dictionaries from a questia search use dominant group to define or describe terms within these dictionaries.

Fact 28: the title of David Millet's article in the journal Canadian Ethnic Studies is "Defining the "Dominant Group."", although this is not words to the effect of providing a rigorous definition of "dominant group".

Fact 29: an 'allintitle' search on Google scholar (allintitle: "dominant group") yields 74 titles, of which none specifically contains only those two words or suggests that the phrase "dominant group" is the object of research of that article.

Fact 30: dominant groups has a history that easily outdates the PI with so far the earliest occurrence being “The dominant species of the larger dominant groups tend to leave many modified descendants, and thus new sub-groups and groups are formed.” from 1859 (Darwin).

Fact 31: dominant group and "group of dominants" are occasionally synonyms.

Fact 32: from white dwarf, "The fundamental properties of the dominant group of nonmagnetic white dwarfs have been invaluable in constraining the theory of single star evolution.", of the 2551 white dwarf stars from the full spectroscopic white dwarf and hot subdwarf sample within the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) first data release, DR1, 1888 are non-magnetic DA types and 171, non-magnetic DBs,, the dominant group is a majority (80.7 %).

Fact 33: of antigenic bacteria, "at any particular time the E. coli of the bowel consists of a single dominant antigenic type that persists over a long period and several others that are definitely transient in their occurrence.", "Together the two strains, A-17 and A-18, accounted for approximately 73 per cent of all cultures examined during the entire period.", “It was clearly the dominant group during the short period of study.”

Fact 34: within micrometeorite, "Ureilites occur about half as often as eucrites (Krot et al. 2003), are relatively friable, have less a wide range of cosmic-ray exposure ages including two less than 1 Myr, and, like the dominant group of MM precursors, contain carbon.", MM is an abbreviation for micrometeorite, "the carbonaceous material [is] known from observation to dominate the terrestrial MM flux.", from the number of different asteroidal precursors, the approximate fraction in MMs is 70 % carbonaceous.

Fact 35: from meteor, "The dominant group in all cases are stony meteors.", "among all the 217 meteors for which we know the beginning there are 70 iron meteors, i. e. about 32 p. c., and 147 stony meteors, i. e. 68 p. c.", where dominant group represents 68% (a majority).

Fact 36: from Martian meteorite, "The dominant group of Martian meteorites, shergottites, are divided into two subgroups consisting of basalts and lherzolites.", nine of fourteen (a majority, 64 %) Martian meteorites can be classified as shergottites.

Fact 37: from sedimentary petrology, with respect to the first compositional group of pebbles of volcanic material, "[i]ncluded in this dominant group are a wide range of volcanic rocks, both lavas and tuffs.", which are a majority of the total number of pebbles analyzed (895 of 1656), 54.0 %.

Fact 38: from Mira variable, "Of a total of 21 objects in the sample, we have covered more than 8 full cycles for 13 regular variables, mostly Mira-type stars.", "The goal was to record between 10 and 15 spectra per pulsation cycle in Mira-type variables, the dominant group in the sample.", here again dominant group represents a majority (or close to it, ≤ 61 %).

Fact 39: the phrase "dominant group logic" together with the phrase "dominant consensus" suggests a subgroup that may be a majority within the article context.

Fact 40: from a star-disc encounter, "In almost all close encounters the energy and angular momentum transfer is dominated by disc material becoming unbound from the system, with the contributions from close disc particle - star encounters being significant.", and "The third is by far the dominant group, comprising 50 per cent of particles.", dominant group is being used to represent at least the plurality (the largest of at least three groups).

Fact 41: from probiotic bacteria is the article title, "Molecular Diversity, Cultivation, and Improved Detection by Fluorescent In Situ Hybridization of a Dominant Group of Human Gut Bacteria Related to Roseburia spp. or Eubacterium rectale", "The human colonic microbiota consists of at least 500 bacterial species", and "The largest single cluster of cultured strains was found to center on the species E. rectale, which has long been considered one of the most abundant species in the human large intestine"., wherein dominant group is referring to "the most abundant species".

Fact 42: is an example from Ichthyology, wherein "it was suggested that 'the actinopterygians (which is the dominant group of fish at the present time with more than 20 000 species) responded to selection pressures by selective enlargement of parts of the brain that enabled a species to occupy an adaptive niche with special success' (Jerison 1973).", the dominant group has the largest number of species.

Fact 43: is from marine predator, "The placoderms underwent a spectacular radiation during the Devonian (between 410 and 360 million years ago), but at the end of this period all placoderms—large, small, marine and freshwater—went extinct. They were replaced by the actinopterygians (ray-finned fishes), which ultimately produced the teleosts, the dominant group of modern fish.".

Fact 44: from mass extinction is "[i]n the history of life it is a striking fact that major changes in the taxonomic groups occupying various ecological positions do not, as a rule, result from direct competition of the groups concerned in each case and the survival of the fittest, as most students would assume a priori. On the contrary, the usual sequence is for one dominant group to die out, leaving the zone empty, before the other group becomes abundant.".

Fact 45: of natural selection is “The third law is, that the species which resemble or “mimic” these dominant groups, are comparatively less abundant in individuals, and are often very rare.”, and “The Nemophas grayi is the larger, stronger, and better armed insect, and belongs to a more widely spread and dominant group, very rich in species and individuals, and is therefore most probably the subject of mimicry by the other species.”.

Fact 46: in ornithology is “The order of feeding and the formation in moving toward food followed the sequence of the interspecific peck order in that the most dominant group fed first, followed by the next in dominance, down the scale.”.

Fact 47: from archosaurs is "Since its origin in the Late Permian or Early Triassic, the archosaur clade has been a successful and often dominant group" and "The archosaurs became the dominant group during the Triassic period, though it took 30 million years before their diversity was as great as the animals that lived in the Permian.".

Fact 48: is from graptolites, "Since in all these levels graptolites are the dominant group of macrofossils, shallow marine conditions are excluded.".

Fact 49: is in phanerozoic rock, "The usual interpretation attributes our pattern of early bottom heaviness to "adaptive radiation" following either an evolutionary innovation or an ecological vacuum caused by extinction of a previously dominant group.".

Fact 50: from sauria is "Obviously, other taxa shared the Earth with the reptiles and competed with them for food, but the Sauria were the dominant group.".

Fact 51: occurs in phylogenetics, "Caenogastropoda is the dominant group of marine gastropods in terms of species numbers, diversity of habit and habitat and ecological importance.".

Fact 52: is a topic of phylogeography, "modern haplochromines gave rise to several major adaptive radiations; the most prominent ones are those of [Lake Malawi] LM and [Lake Victoria] LV.", the radiation of the Tropheini from Lake Tanganyika (LT) "must now be considered as an additional radiation of the modern haplochromines, corroborating the much older perception that LT accommodates several independent species flocks", and "This implies that the ancestor of the Tropheini successfully re-entered the lake habitat and evolved into the presently dominant group in the rocky littoral zone of LT."

Fact 53: is documented from the subseafloor, "However, at depth, the subseafloor metagenome becomes a unique dataset, with Archaea becoming a dominant group based on ribosomal sequence analysis.".

Fact 54: is also documented from the subseafloor, "A variety of phylotypes belonging to green nonsulfur bacteria were detected, primarily in the topmost clay layer, where they were the dominant group".

Fact 55: is another documented from the subseafloor, "Among them Marine Crenarchaeotic Group I (MG I) was the most dominant group (49.2% of the archaeal library)".

With respect to the first alternative, "the principal investigator (PI) is deliberately perpetrating a hoax", the foregoing facts should demonstrate beyond reasonable doubt (98.18 %) that the PI is clearly not perpetrating a hoax. "[R]easonable" refers to the reasonable person legal standard. Additional facts that may help to strongly re-enforce this invalidation of the first alternative will be added as discovered.

Fact 56: "The dominant group (in terms of biomass) of decomposer organisms in these soils are earthworms (Megascolecidae)".

Fact 57: is from 1895, "we find a number of nearly related forms in competition for a similar position in the soil, for a favorable position in the sunlight, and for the aid of the same pollinating agency. The process of producing similar forms may go until the competition becomes so severe that it becomes disadvantageous. Then it becomes advantageous for some of the forms to avoid competition¹ with the dominant group by migrating to a different region, or to a different kind of soil, to modify their floral characters so as to attract a different set of visitors, or to separate their times of blooming so that they may not have to compete with a great many similar flowers for the attention of the same kinds of insects.", where the criteria of dominance seems reasonably indicated if not quantified.

Fact: 58: is from 1887, "A dominant group is characterized by the abundance of its forms, both in species and individuals, over wide areas, this being the index of its vigor and consequent ability to maintain itself against competitors, and its adaptability to varying conditions of environment.".

As to alternative number 2, by analogy to the Piltdown man, the hoaxer in that instance also "found" the bones. The whole hoax occurred at one specific point in time.

From the references discovered regarding dominant group, the time line stretches from 1859 to 2011, with many decades represented. The only block of decades without an example in the above fact list is 1900 - 1930. Some instances of dominant group within texts occur at Dominant group/Economics, Dominant group/Geography, Dominant group/Psychology, and Dominant group/Religion, some of which are still under review, and one reference currently (1900s) available offline. Many of these do not contain a readily available meaning for the usage. Once available, these seventeen decades (with at least one article per decade, currently fifty-eight articles spread unevenly, most concentrated in the sociology grouping from 2004 to present) should demonstrate (to better than 98.2 %) that it is unlikely anyone is perpetrating any hoax on anyone.

For alternative number 3, as alternative number 1 has been invalidated, and number 2 is highly unlikely (> 94 % unlikely), evaluating whether this exploration is a waste of time and effort depends on what can be achieved and possibly published for available funding.

Article credit hypothesis

Main resources: Dominant group/Article credit hypothesis and Article credit hypothesis

Specifically, the PI has already published a refereed article in an archival journal on this subject and is including the effort here and on Wikipedia for article notoriety and publicity or to receive grant money for preexisting research.

To receive grant money (maybe between $10,000 to $120,000) for preexisting research (if known to the PI) is likely to be considered fraud which generally carries a penalty usually not worth having inflicted (fact 1).

A risk inherent in original research is that the topic (here: dominant group) has already been investigated and reported on in the archival refereed literature in some specific subject area, such as anthropology, where search engines either have not discovered it, or have not listed it as within the first ten top reported to the searcher. Usually, a Google scholar search is set to return 100 but all are not always examined (fact 2).

An allintitle search on Google scholar (allintitle: "dominant group") yields 74 titles, of which none specifically contains only those two words or suggests that the phrase dominant group is the object of research of that article (fact 3). There is one entitled, "Keywords - Dominant group and dominated group". This suggests that 'dominant group' is a keyword.

With the finding and using of ‘Fact 55’ that demonstrates beyond reasonable doubt (98.18 %) that dominant group

1. is a real concept with a timeline that predates the PI,
2. has at least one special meaning in addition to or other than the obvious one (or several obvious ones),
3. and clearly has a significance or special meaning that goes beyond the juxtaposition of two words, then the 'proof of concept' period is successfully concluded.

The Google scholar search using “dominant group” within quotes yields about 66,800 articles, patents, and citations. So far the examination of the use of the phrase within cited text and context has utilized some 250 sources (with some duplication) of the 66,800. None of these ~250 reveals a specific analysis of the term itself, although such a large number suggests one may be out there somewhere.

This is a problem, or challenge, inherent in any research endeavor, especially at the beginning (the most vulnerable period). Further, a hot, popular topic is likely to have competitors. Although, I make no claim that dominant group is either.

Since the timeline predates the PI (fact 4) and begins at least 152 B.P., there is a 50 % chance (fact 5) that any article written about the specific term lies in the period 1859 to 1935. Even if such an article exists during those seventy-six years, it may not be findable or retrievable, except as a reference in an article written during the second seventy-six years. Trotter’s article in 1887, twenty-eight years later, stays very close to Darwin (1859) (fact 6), but it is in biology.

From 1930, is this (fact 7) “It is easy, furthermore, to predict quite accurately within the dominant group on the basis of mental ability, roughly, at least, that a member of this group will excel submissive persons in academic endeavors.” PsycNET (url=http://psycnet.apa.org/) allows searches back to 1917 for the Journal of Applied Psychology. But this is the first occurrence of dominant group (fact 8). The source is not in a readily accessible form so the definition (or meaning) of the term is not readily available.

Fact 9: “At any rate, here is confirmation of the thesis that art voices the will of the dominant group in society.” Here again the source is not readily available so the meaning of dominant group is also not.

Both of these suggest a radiation, though not necessarily a different meaning from Trotter or Darwin, from pure botany or zoology to psychology and sociology (fact 10).

This suggests but does not confirm that any article specifically focused on the term itself either is not retrievable by Google scholar or if before 1887 is not referenced properly by Trotter (unlikely) (fact 11).

From 1907 is this "Where there is a serious difference of opinions as to policies, the platform is likely under any system to be shaped by the dominant group and will be practically the program outlined by this faction in its fight before the primary election." Here dominant group could mean some internal political party majority, plurality, political 'machine', or something else. The author appears to be using the term to indicate a possibly undesirable force that may pick candidates for a particular political party that may undermine the collective desires of the majority of party members, especially when at least two popular candidates exist. This source is readily accessible but the exact meaning appears to have been kept deliberately vague.

Merriam's 1907 paper in the "Proceedings of the American Political Science Association" suggests a further radiance from Trotter (1887) and Darwin prior to entry into sociology and psychology. The meaning, though vague does not appear to correspond to any before or relatively immediately since such as by Broom in 1930 (fact 12). Merriam cites references extensively but none for the use of dominant group. At that time Merriam is a professor at the University of Chicago, who should be well acquainted with the literature (at least in political science) and with the need for thorough referencing. The term is used only once in the article on page 184.

These twelve facts plus the investigation of seventy-four titles (including excerpts below each by Google scholar), if counted individually, provide a 98.82 % probability that no such prior article by anyone exists specifically focused on the term itself. This stated, with so many possibilities (66,800), there could be 785-786 articles, patents, or citations (most likely citations where text is not available and the title does not include the term). It seems most unlikely that any author writing about dominant group specifically would deliberately leave the term out of the title.

A Google scholar search using "keywords" + "dominant group" has been performed resulting in the keywords usage reported below under the 'Term hypothesis'. Although some 10,000 articles, patents, and citations are returned, only the first 1000 are presented for view. While as a keyword "dominant group" is found, none of these returns from the title or excerpt indicated that the article, patent or citation focused specifically on the term dominant group. With some overlap, this brings the probability of no such prior article focused on dominant group to 99.92 % bringing the number down from 785-786 to approximately 50-51.

This should suffice to prove beyond reasonable doubt that anyone has specifically written any article in the refereed literature about dominant group, making the lack of such an article, possibly including a 'rigorous definition', a worthy research topic for such a prevalent and notable term.

On 17 June 2011, Delmar Thomas C. Stawart, editor, Dominant group, published by Dicho, a book of articles on dominant group from Wikipedia, pp. 140, ISBN 6136697343.

Term hypothesis

Main resources: Dominant group/Term hypothesis and Term hypothesis

Specifically, the two words together as dominant group is a significant term in the scholarly literature with meaning and necessity. Here it would be expected that the phrase 'dominant group' has a history in the literature. Further, the two words together as 'dominant group' may fit within preexisting designations for two-word combinations.

Phrases

In everyday speech, a phrase may refer to any group of words. In linguistics, a phrase is a group of words which form a constituent and so function as a single unit in the syntax of a sentence. A phrase is lower on the grammatical hierarchy than a clause.

Most phrases have an important word defining the type and linguistic features of the phrase. This word is the head of the phrase and gives its name to the phrase category. For example, the phrase the massive dinosaur is a noun phrase because its head word (dinosaur) is a noun. The head can be distinguished from its dependents (the rest of the phrase other than the head) because the head of the phrase determines many of the grammatical features of the phrase as a whole.

• Noun phrase (NP) with a noun as head (e.g. the black cat, a cat on the mat)

From this, by example and definition, 'dominant group' is a noun phrase, especially if preceded by an article. A noun phrase can have the head noun modified by an adjective or another noun.

Constituents

From the linguistic anthropology example about pidginisation are the following:

"Pidginisation occurs where there is a close economic relationship between two peoples; the pidgin is derived from the language of the dominant partner in the relationship. Such a relationship and the dominance of one side could be inferred from archaeological evidence, independently."

"Such a relationship may just as well result in the adoption of the dominant group's language as a lingua franca without significant pidginisation."

Constituency tests:

1. substitution (replacement), use "it",
2. movement (fronting, clefting, preposing, passivization),
3. stand-alone,
4. deletion, and
5. coordination.

• substitution: "Such a relationship may just as well result in the adoption of its language as a lingua franca without significant pidginisation."
• movement (fronting): "The dominant group of such a relationship may just as well result in the language adoption as a lingua franca without significant pidginisation."
• movement (clefting): "It is the dominant group of such a relationship that may just as well result in the language adoption as a lingua franca without significant pidginisation."
• movement (preposing): "The dominant group of such a relationship may just as well result (is what results) in language adoption as a lingua franca without significant pidginisation."
• movement (passivization): "Such a relationship may just as well result as a lingua franca without significant pidginisation in the adoption of the language of the dominant group."
• stand-alone: "Such a relationship may just as well result as a lingua franca without significant pidginisation in the adoption of the language of the dominant group."
• deletion: "Such a relationship may just as well result in the adoption of the language as a lingua franca without significant pidginisation."
• coordination: "Such a relationship may just as well result in the adoption of language and the dominant group as a lingua franca without significant pidginisation."

While rewording to test constituency may be less than needed, it does appear that the phrase 'dominant group' is a constituent.

Disambiguation

Syntactic ambiguity characterizes sentences which can be interpreted in different ways depending solely on how one perceives syntactic connections between words and arranges them into phrases.

"Such a relationship may just as well result in the adoption of the dominant group's language as a lingua franca without significant pidginisation."

"The adoption of the dominant group's language as a lingua franca without significant pidginisation may just as well result from such a relationship."

While again rewording may fail to adequately perform the test, the wording does not seem to lend itself to ambiguity.

Disambiguation in Wikipedia is the process of resolving the conflicts that arise when a single term is ambiguous—when it refers to more than one topic covered by Wikipedia articles. For example, the word "Mercury" can refer to an element, a planet, a Roman god, and many other things.

Disambiguation is required whenever, for a given word or phrase on which a reader might search, there is more than one existing Wikipedia article to which that word or phrase might be expected to lead. In this situation there must be a way for the reader to navigate quickly from the page that first appears to any of the other possible desired articles.

Wikipedia:Disambiguation: "Do not include references in disambiguation pages; disambiguation pages are not articles. Incorporate references into the disambiguated articles as needed."

• Power elite

• Good ol' boy network

• Kings of Dál nAraidi, the dominant group among the Cruthin of Ulaid

• Kokkadichcholai, the dominant group is the Mukkuvar caste

• Romantic racism, a form of racism in which members of a dominant group purportedly project their fantasies and sometimes racial fears

• Siah-Posh Kafirs, the former designation of the major and dominant group of the Hindukush Kafirs inhabiting the Bashgul

• Suit, The Establishment

• The Establishment, a visible dominant group or elite which holds power or authority in a nation

• Vellalar of Sri Lanka, a dominant group of formerly agricultural landlord related caste from Sri Lanka

• Winterton, Lincolnshire, the landing place of the dominant group of Anglish settlers in the fifth century

• Acroporidae, the dominant group of reef builders

• Dorado Group

• Euenantiornithes

• Galaxias, the dominant group of native freshwater fish in New Zealand

• Restionaceae, the dominant group in the Western Cape

• Shaochilong, the dominant group of large-bodied theropods in Laurasian during the Mid-Cretaceous

• 24 Hours of Le Mans

• Nissan R90C, the dominant Group C car

• Muted group theory

Polysemy

Polysemy is the capacity for a sign to have multiple meanings. Polysemy is a pivotal concept within the humanities, such as media studies and linguistics. From the list of polysemes it appears that most are single words with very different and often derivational meanings.

Encyclopedic content

The modern encyclopedia evolved out of dictionaries around the 17th century. Generally speaking, unlike dictionary entries, which focus on linguistic information about words, encyclopedia articles focus on factual information to cover the thing or concept for which the article name stands.

"An English lexicographer, H.W. Fowler, wrote in the preface to the first edition (1911) of The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Current English that a dictionary is concerned with the uses of words and phrases and with giving information about the things for which they stand only so far as current use of the words depends upon knowledge of those things. The emphasis in an encyclopaedia is much more on the nature of the things for which the words and phrases stand."

"In contrast with linguistic information, encyclopedia material is more concerned with the description of objective realities than the words or phrases that refer to them. In practice, however, there is no hard and fast boundary between factual and lexical knowledge."

"An 'encyclopedia' (encyclopaedia) usually gives more information than a dictionary; it explains not only the words but also the things and concepts referred to by the words."

New knowledge

On Wikipedia there is an article entitled, "Original research", wherein is the following, "The purpose of the original research is to produce new knowledge, rather than to present the existing knowledge in a new form (e.g., summarized or classified)."

For a word or phrase, once a number of purposes or functions (of the metadefinition) are addressed and satisfied, this set of addressed and satisfied attributes is the definition for the word or phrase.Presenting the existing knowledge of or about the word or phrase in a new form (the metadefinition) and summarizing or classifying that existing knowledge into the new form is something other than producing new knowledge; i.e., something other than original research.

Presenting a new form for existing knowledge is not considered a primary source, but producing new knowledge about changes in the attributes over time or as a function of other variables is original research.

As an example of this, the apparently earliest definition of a 'dominant group' may be

1. relation: dominant species,
2. population: 'forms of life',
3. basis or 'criteria for dominance': 'the common, the widely-diffused, and the widely-ranged species', and
4. country (of the dominant group): 'in their own countries'.

Or, a dominant group of life forms is the common, the widely-diffused, and the widely-ranged species (plural form of species) in their own countries. Each of these attributes can change over time, subject area, or other variables (such as temperature).

History

Main resource: History

From 1880 is the following: “The Plant life of this Period was of a very varied and luxuriant character, and the Angiosperms had now become the dominant group.”

According to JSTOR (url=http://www.jstor.org/), the earliest use of the term “Dominant group” occurs in an article from 1877 on the classification of butterflies, where overall the author discusses the family groups into which butterflies are primarily divided. The specific text which includes the phrase is “When we consider this singular apparatus, which in some species is nearly half an inch long, the arrangement of muscles for its protrusion and retraction, its perfect concealment during repose, its blood-red color, and the suddenness with which it can be thrown out, we must, I think, be led to the conclusion that it serves as a protection to the larva, by startling and frightening away some enemy when about to seize it, and is thus one of the causes which has led to the wide extension and maintained the permanence of this now dominant group”. This portion of the quote is attributed to Alfred Russel “Wallace, Natural Selection Am. Ed. 135.”

From 1871 is the statement, “The third law is, that the species which resemble of “mimic” these dominant groups, are comparatively less abundant in individuals, and are often very rare.” “The Nemophas grayi is the larger, stronger, and better armed insect, and belongs to a more widely spread and dominant group, very rich in species and individuals, and is therefore most probably the subject of mimicry by the other species.” The third law statement from 1871 also occurs in 1867.

“Because there were vast numbers of other groups and species of butterflies in Brazil equally subject to attacks of birds with the Pieridz, which had never attempted the assumption of forms of the dominant group, Heliconiids.” in 1866.

The constituent, dominant group, occurs as early as 1859, in the plural "dominant groups".

"We have seen that it is the common, the widely-diffused, and the widely-ranged species, belonging to the larger genera, which vary most; and these will tend to transmit to their modified offspring that superiority which now makes them dominant in their own countries." "[A]ll plants throughout all time and space should be related to each other in group subordinate to group, in the manner which we everywhere behold -- namely, varieties of the same species most closely related together, species of the same genus less closely and unequally related together, forming sections and sub-genera, species of distinct genera much less closely related, and genera related in different degrees, forming sub-families, families, orders, sub-classes, and classes."

The term dominant group does not appear in Darwin’s 1859 book, “On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection”. But the plural term dominant groups appears thirteen times. The earliest use of the phrase is on page 343, “The dominant species of the larger dominant groups tend to leave many modified descendants, and thus new sub-groups and groups are formed.”

For evolution on the basis of natural selection, the components of the dominant groups are

1. relation: dominant species,
2. population: 'forms of life',
3. basis or 'criteria for dominance': 'the common, the widely-diffused, and the widely-ranged species', and
4. country (of the dominant group): 'in their own countries'.

Neologism

A neologism is a newly coined term, word or phrase, that may be in the process of entering common use, but has not yet been accepted into mainstream language. Neologisms are often directly attributable to a specific person, publication, period, or event.

Neologisms can become popular through memetics, by way of mass media, the Internet, and word of mouth, including academic discourse in many fields renowned for their use of distinctive jargon, and often become accepted parts of the language.

When a word or phrase is no longer "new", it is no longer a neologism. Neologisms may take decades to become "old", however. Opinions differ on exactly how old a word must be to cease being considered a neologism.

So far the oldest use of the phrase "dominant groups" dates from 1859 in Darwin's Origin of Species. If it's a neologism, it has taken 152 years. Perhaps it is a 'paleologism'.

Jargon

Jargon is terminology which is especially defined in relationship to a specific activity, profession, group, or event. The philosophe Condillac observed in 1782 that "Every science requires a special language because every science has its own ideas." As a rationalist member of the Enlightenment he continued, "It seems that one ought to begin by composing this language, but people begin by speaking and writing and the language remains to be composed."

In earlier times, the term jargon would refer to trade languages used by people who spoke different native tongues to communicate, such as the Chinook Jargon.

In other words, the term covers the language used by people who work in a particular area or who have a common interest. Much like slang, it can develop as a kind of short-hand, to express ideas that are frequently discussed between members of a group, though it can also be developed deliberately using chosen terms. A standard term may be given a more precise or unique usage among practitioners of a field. In many cases this causes a barrier to communication with those not familiar with the language of the field. As an example, the words RAM, bit, byte, CPU, and hexadecimal are jargon terms related to computing.

"Of the meaning of 'dominant group' he writes: 'Now when a technical word is coined to designate some non-linguistic phenomenon, or when a word (such as 'dominant') is taken over from ordinary speech and used to designate the phenomenon, a new semantic rule is required. Otherwise, the range of application of the word will be unspecified.'"

Author chosen keyword

From Wiktionary, keyword has these meanings as a noun:

1. any word used as the key to a code
2. (information science) any word used in a reference work to link to other words or other information
3. (programming) a reserved word used to identify a specific command, function, etc.
4. (linguistics) any word that occurs in a text more than normal.

From Wikipedia, keyword may refer to

1. keyword (linguistics),
2. keyword (computer programming),
3. index term, "a term used as a keyword to retrieve documents in an information system such as a catalog or a search engine", or
4. Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society, non-fiction book.

Author chosen keywords are probably designed to convey specific and significant meaning regarding the exact focus of their article.

Keyword: "dominant group control".

Keyword: "Dominant-group cartels".

Keyword: "dominant ingroup-outgroup distinction - conditions of novelty or uncertainty".

Keyword: "dominant groups".

Keyword: "dominant groups".

Keyword: "ethnic slurs - use by dominant or colonial groups".

Keyword: "cultural imperialism theory and dominant sociopolitical group influences".

Keyword: "enzymes, involved in phosphoryl transfer reactions - dominant group among monovalent cation–activated enzymes".

Frequency of use as a keyword or portion of a keyword for articles or book chapters, containing the phrase dominant group, is at best about 6 of 34 or 17.6%, and at the worse 0.25%.

Small group study

Main resources: Dominant group/Small group study and Small group study

Once the phrase dominant group is found within an individual subject area, a small group of publications is chosen for analysis from various divisions of the subject area. The publications chosen should have a downloadable form so that occurrences of dominant group can be found and context regarding its components available. The results for each dominant group are within small group study. For each small group subject area, each article content is used to analyze the contextual meanings. Individual studies are located at subpages:

1. Anthropology
2. Astronomy,
3. Economics,
4. Ethnicity,
5. Geology,
6. Metagenome,
7. Planetary science, and
8. Sociology.

Field experiment

Main resources: Dominant group/Fields and Fields

Test each hypothesis and other possibilities during the course of investigating possible causal relationships among words similar to 'dominant', e.g., dominance, dominating, and dominate, 'group' such as 'type', 'class', or 'category'.

The constituent may be refined by more sophisticated inquiry of search engines and subject areas.

As it may be the case that Darwin's compelling use of the constituent influenced others to follow, 'dominant group' may have evolved into alternate new forms that timeline analysis can reveal which may have in turn become dominant.

Articles found through examination of various academic fields that contain the constituent 'dominant group', after analysis, can be archived in wikipedia articles about usage of the constituent within the field as a start. Each article can be expanded appropriately as greater insight occurs and conclusions (hopefully) are arrived at.

One necessary concern is article title. The initial title has the pattern 'Dominant group (field)'. But, alternates such as 'Field dominant group' or 'Dominant field group' need to be explored. An instance is 'Anthropological dominant group' vs. 'Dominant anthropological group'. The former seems more appropriate as these are dominant groups of anthropology, rather than dominants of anthropological groups or an anthropological group of a dominant.

Google scholar standard

Searching the word "the" yielded about 9,360,000 articles and patents in 0.30 s for anytime. Using "a" or "an" yielded far fewer.

Using "dominant group" yields 66,700 articles and patents, anytime, including citations; with "dominant" yielding 3,290,000 and "group" yielding 5,770,000.

Searching complex phrases

A dominant group within the subject area of art raises at least two possibilities:

1. a dominant group of art objects and
2. a dominant group in some way associated with art or the arts.

For example, "dominant group in sociology" on Google Scholar yields four returns, three of the four involve author PH Collins with one exhibiting the quoted phrase in the sentence, "White males have long been the dominant group in sociology, and the sociological worldview understandably reflects the concerns of this group of practitioners." Applying the two meanings, a dominant group of sociology objects or a dominant group in some way associated with sociology or practicing sociology. Using the identification: sociology objects equals "white males" or "white males" in some way associated with sociology or practicing sociology. From the primary source: "As Merton observes, "white male insiderism in American sociology during the past generations has largely been of the tacit or de facto ... variety. It has simply taken the form of patterned expectations about the appropriate ... problems for investigation"". From the two meanings, first "white males" are a dominant group controlling sociology, there is a transition to "white males" are sociology objects: "white males are more worthy of study because they are more fully human than everyone else" caused by the "white males" dominating sociological research.

By analogy, "dominant group in art" yields no matches, whereas ""dominant group" art" yields about 20,400 articles. This suggests that there is no article about a dominant group of art objects.

A dominant group (art); i.e., the term 'dominant group' in theory, may have at least two meanings with respect to art: (1) a dominant group of art objects or (2) a dominant group in some way associated with art or the arts. In the first sense, one could argue, for example at Easter Island, that during a particular period the number of sculptures or the size produced by local artists is far greater than the number or size of paintings produced. In the second, art or the arts is in some way associated with a social framework. Art can be an expression of identity in response to social conditions or from an effort to describe or respond to the social order. Art allows individuals to think about themselves and others in new and abstract ways.

While the first sense of a dominant group in art may exist (both paintings and sculpture have been found on Easter Island), the second is the currently popular association, perhaps due to the increasing use of the phrase 'dominant group' in sociology.

Dominance group

Main resources: Dominant group/Dominance groups and Dominance groups

A Google scholar search using "dominance group" yields about 731 articles. The phrase occurs occasionally as "ocular dominance group" (205), "language dominance group" (29), "eye dominance group" (25), "mixed-dominance group" (15), "social dominance group" (15), and "hand dominance group" (10), among others.

Mixtures are a bit more productive: right + "dominance group" (567), left + "dominance group" (504), hand + "dominance group" (472), brain + "dominance group" (368), eye + "dominance group" (319), social + "dominance group" (316), sex + "dominance group" (233), language + "dominant group" (202), reading + "dominance group" (152), with obvious overlap. These results suggest that "dominance group" has a much more restrictive usage to that of brain dominance and closely related effects.

Dominant group as a control

Main resources: Dominant group/Control group hypothesis and Control group hypothesis

However, as a control: social + "dominant group" yields 54,900, hand + "dominant group" yields 48,700, right + "dominant group" yields 44,200 and left + "dominant group" yields 40,900, where "dominant group" yields 67,800. But brain + "dominant group" yields 7,440.

This suggests that other meanings of right, left, and hand (such as "on the other hand"), are entering in when "dominant group" is used. "Dominant group" + "on the other hand" yields 36,800. "Dominant group" -"on the other hand" yields 33,100.

Eye + "dominant group" yields 14,900, where "looking in the eye", "eye color", or "eye contact" is an influence. Using the negative to remove some popular social phrases of "eye", eye "dominant group" -"eye contact" -"in the eye" -"eye-witness" -"mind's eye" -"eye on" -"eye color" reduces the yield to 10,200. By inspection of the first 100 responses, 32 were social (sociological) rather than related to neural (neurological).

Both phrases "dominance group" and dominant group appear to have social (sociological) and neurological significance, with dominant group being much more prevalent. While each appears to have social significance, "dominance group" and "dominating group" appear to have more neural significance, although all terms considered have social significance and dominant group has neural and other science area significance outside social (sociological).

Dominating group

Main resources: Dominant group/Dominating groups and Dominating groups

A Google scholar search for "dominating group" finds 2,130 articles, where mixing yields: right + "dominating group" (1,480), hand + "dominating group" (1,350), social + "dominating group" (1,340), left + "dominating group" (1,130), and brain + "dominating group" (270).

Dominate group

As suggested by the juxtaposition of the two words, the occurrence of 'dominate group' is expected to be along the lines of 'verb' + 'predicate', as "dominate group discussion". On Google scholar the phrase "dominate group" occurs in 778 articles. Social + "dominate group" is 638, right + "dominate group" (565), hand + "dominate group" (530), left + "dominate group" (417), and brain + "dominate group" (143).

Hypotheses

Main resource: Hypotheses

1. Dominant group is a two-word term in the humanities.

See also

• Aesthetics
• Anthropology
• Archeology
• Astronomy
• Biology
• Comets
• Economics
• Genetics
• Geology
• Meteorology
• Moon

Further reading

• William Kirby, William Spence (1826). An Introduction to Entomology: or Elements of the Natural History of Insects, Volume IV. London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green, Paternoster Row. pp. 474-492. http://books.google.com/books?id=OgA7AAAAMAAJ&pg=PA485&hl=en#v=onepage&f=false. Retrieved 2011-11-30. 

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