History Questions

Please respond to at least 2 of the following questions.

1. Can one talk meaningfully of a historical fact? How can we speak with certainty about anything in the past?

2. In what ways has technology affected the study of history? How have the methods of gaining evidence and the means of communicating historical interpretation, for example, been affected by technological development? Can we now observe the past more directly?

3. What is the role of the historian? Does the historian record history, or create it? Can the historian be free of bias in the selection and interpretation of material? Could it be reasonably argued that the personal understandings of historians, despite their possible bias, is necessary or even desirable in the interpretation and recording of history? Is the power of persuasion a characteristic of a good historian?

4. To what extent is the very nature of this Area of Knowledge affected by being about the past? In what ways do other Areas of Knowledge also concern themselves with the past? Is all knowledge, in a sense, historical knowledge?

Alternative History

Choose an event in History and write what would have happened if something different had happened to change the outcome of the event. Once an event or person has been written about in this blog, you must choose a different event (basically, I do not want 50 or 60 people writing about what would have happened if Hitler had been hit by a bus. I want to read many different alternative histories). Please consider more than just several ramifications of the alternative history that you choose to write about.

Human Sciences

Please respond to two or more of the following questions.

1. The following anonymous statement is oft quoted, "Under the most rigourously controlled conditions of pressure, temperature, humidity, and other variables, the organism will do exactly as it pleases." How does this quote affect, inform, or question your views on Human behaviour and the how it is studied? With this quote in mind, can human behaviour be studied using the Scientific Method?

2. How might the language used in polls, questionnaires and other information-gathering devices of this sort influence the conclusions reached? If there is an influence, does it, or a similar one, occur in natural science research? Does the extent of the influence relate to the degree of certainty attributed to the natural sciences and the human sciences respectively, or to the social status or value associated with each.

3. What are the implications of Mario Puzo's claim that "If our brains were simple, we would be too simple to understand them."?

4. Is it reasonable to attempt to explain human behaviour independently of what people claim are their intentions? Why, or why not? Explain.

Human Sciences vs. Natural Sciences

Simply respond to the following statement and state your reasons for why you know or believe that you are right.

Nature vs. Nurture

All Things TED Quarter 3

Post your responses to the 8 TED talks that you watch in this section for 2nd Quarter.  Your responses should be about a paragraph.  These responses should be anything that you think is important, cool, uncool, interesting, uninteresting about the video you watched.

More on the Natural Sciences

Please respond to both of the following questions/statements:

1. Is scientific knowledge valued for its own sake or more for the technology that it makes possible? Is there any science that can be pursued without the use of technology?

2. Should scientists be held morally responsible for the applications of their discoveries? To what extent would it be true to say that technological advances drive changes in values and morality? Is there any area of scientific knowledge that is morally unacceptable?

Natural Sciences

Please respond to two of the following questions.

1. What is the role of creativity in the sciences? To what extent is the creation of a hypothesis or a research method comparable to the creation of a work of art?

2. What knowledge, if any, will always remain beyond the capabilities of science to investigate or verify? If there is, or can be, such knowledge, why will it always elude effective scientific treatment?

3. What are the similarities and differences in methods in the natural sciences and the human sciences? To what extent do their fields of study overlap? To what extent would it be true to say that the human sciences appear less 'scientific' because their subject matter is more complex?