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Phyle

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Phyle

A social grouping that is not identical to a Franchise-Organized Quasi-National Entities (FOQNE) ala The Diamond Age, or A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer.

Group (sociology)

In sociology, a group is usually defined as a collection consisting of a number of people who share certain aspects, interact with one another, accept rights and obligations as members of the group and share a common identity. Using this definition, society can appear as a large group.

While an aggregate comprises merely a number of people, a group in sociology exhibits cohesiveness to a larger degree. Aspects that members in the group may share include interests, values, ethnic/linguistic background and kinship.

Primary groups consist of small groups with intimate, kin-based relationships: families, for example. They commonly last for years. The term was coined by Charles Horton Cooley.

Secondary groups, in contrast to primary groups, are large groups whose relationships are formal and institutional. Some of them may last for years but some may disband after a short lifetime.

Society

A society is a group of humans that form a semi-closed system, in which most interactions are with other people belonging to the group. A society is a network of relationships between people. A society is an interdependent community. The casual meaning of society simply refers to a group of people living together in an ordered community. Societies are the main subject of study of the social sciences.

The origin of the word society comes from the Latin societas, a "friendly association with others." Societas is derived from socius meaning "companion" and thus the meaning of society is closely related to what is social. Implicit in the meaning of society is that its members share some mutual concern or interest in a common objective. As such, society is often used as synonymous with the collective citizenry of a country as directed through national institutions concerned with civic welfare.

Peoples of many nations united by common political and cultural traditions, beliefs, or values are sometimes also said to be a society (for example: Judeo-Christian, Eastern, Western, etc). When used in this context, the term is being used as a means of contrasting two or more "societies" whose representative members represent alternative conflicting and competing worldviews.

Also, some groups apply the title "society" to themselves, as the "American Society of Mathematics". This is most common in commerce, in which a partnership between investors to start a business is usually called a "society".

If society is something of a shibboleth, confusions in its understanding can often be traced to the various nuances in which it has been used to describe a great variety of political opinion. For example, former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher famously denied that society exists at all. However, Thatcher's use of the term was narrow and should be understood within the context of her polemic. In the interview in Women's Own magazine, October 3 1987, Thatcher argued that the obligation for solving social problems, commonly expected of the government, was more properly the responsibility of individuals and families: "no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first" (Thatcher 1987). Thatcher only denies the existence of "society" as she understands it -- the idea that social welfare is the responsibility of government and not individuals.

Phyla

Scientific classification refers to how biologists group and categorize extinct and living species of organisms. Modern classification has its roots in the system of Carl Linnaeus, who grouped species according to shared physical characteristics. These groupings have been revised since Linnaeus to improve consistency with the Darwinian principle of common descent. Molecular systematics, which uses Genomic DNA analysis has driven many recent revisions and is likely to continue to do so. Scientific classification belongs to the science of taxonomy or biological systematics.