Is history useless?

[ParkCungHee]

I'm not sure if you're being deliberately obtuse about a rather clear difference in order to make a point, or if you legitimately don't understand.

I legitimately don't understand. The structure of benzine already existed, therefor it cannot be said to be new.

I don't get what your point in asking me the predictive qualities of various pieces of knowledge is?

The point is that the claim is self-defeating.

Like I replied to ParkCungHee, the difference between facts about past events and knowledge about the objective nature of reality seems pretty clear to me.

I thought we were discussing the value of history vis a vis Science, not the value of history vis a vis Philosophy.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

You still don't need a paleontologist for that. Just about any good communicator like Bill Nye, or some documentary maker for PBS or Discovery is better at popularizing dinosaurs than an actual paleontologist. That still reduces paleontology by saying that the benefit of paleontology is that it encourages people to join other sciences, again, reducing it to an appendage.

Except that Discovery also doesn't do the research I mentioned. And you're acting like the things I mentioned are the only things paleontology does. Once again, I cannot come up with an exhaustive list of all the things that field does (Well, I might be able to. But that would mean not studying for some upcoming tests. That is generally a bad idea.). Each field has their own constellation of such purposes, which interact in potentially complex ways (even with other fields and their purposes), and which vary in their importance to certain people.

There is none. The seminal study here was done by Tetlock and Belkin, who, among many other things, found that leading academics were incapable of predicting even fairly major world events - the demise of the Soviet Union was the main one brought up - with a degree of reliability greater than a coinflip, and even then the predictions skewed ideologically to the point of uselessness.

Did they give any reasons as to why? I guess I'm also asking if there's any way to access this article online. I'm not quite familiar with navigating the history literature, and I wonder if they have an equivalent to PubMed.

One thing you will never find them without, curiously enough, is storytellers.

Define "storyteller" though. Because a person telling a story could span the spectrum from entertainment to astronomy ("what is this bright thing in the western sky?").

 

[dutchfire]

Google scholar?
This might be the thing Dachs is talking about. http://www.uky.edu/AS/PoliSci/Peffley/pdf/Tetlock 1999 AJPS Theory-driven World Politics.pdf

 

[Crezth]

Define "storyteller" though. Because a person telling a story could span the spectrum from entertainment to astronomy ("what is this bright thing in the western sky?").

Storyteller notably includes historians and astronomers alike.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

And a bunch of other things too, such as agronomist and funeral director.

Google scholar?
This might be the thing Dachs is talking about. http://www.uky.edu/AS/PoliSci/Peffley/pdf/Tetlock 1999 AJPS Theory-driven World Politics.pdf

That's an interesting paper. Blinding and controls seem to be nearly impossible in history. That comment about scientists and ESP really needed a citation though.

 

[GoodGame]

Sounds like you want a chronicler, not a historian.

Both are good.

 

[Traitorfish]

Like I replied to ParkCungHee, the difference between facts about past events and knowledge about the objective nature of reality seems pretty clear to me.

Well, what is it?

 

[Crezth]

And a bunch of other things too, such as agronomist and funeral director.

Well, yes. And? If we're going to play a silly reductionist game by declaring historians to be little more than "mere" storytellers and then expand that definition to include everyone, it seems to me that there is no legitimately coherent point to be made that history is "useless," nevermind that no working definition of useless or useful has been provided.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Congrats, you just described how literally dozens of discoveries have been made using the Septuagint.

Using the what? A quick trip to the dictionary tells me it has something to do with 70 or 72 scholars, Ptolemy II, and so on. I've never heard of this.

how could you possibly prove that, and what does that have to do with Homer's historical knowledge based on the existence of an Anatolian hill fort?

Specifics would be nice. What documentary? Which archaeologists? Which burial sites? Whose chronology -- the Septuagint's? Because it doesn't name any Pharaohs the same way modern historians do. On the other hands, lots of artifacts have independently confirmed what was only believed because it was in the Hebrew Bible to begin with. (I wrote an article about that a really long time ago if you want to see.) I mean, if you read what some historians in the 18th century wrote, you would discover that they entirely disbelieved in any Levantine coalition against the Neo-Assyrians, on the basis that peoples of that age were too barbaric to form transnatonal coalitions; but lo and behold Sennacherib's prism that was discovered in 1830.

It's a documentary I saw YEARS AGO - I don't recall the exact title. I've seen lots of archaeology documentaries, though, so I'll see what I can find online - maybe a title/description will tweak my memory.

There's no need for such hostility, 'k?

Define "storyteller" though. Because a person telling a story could span the spectrum from entertainment to astronomy ("what is this bright thing in the western sky?").

Storyteller notably includes historians and astronomers alike.

When I see the words "storyteller" and "astronomer" combined, I think of somebody reciting the ancient Greek myths (or Roman, Chinese, Native North American, etc.). However, there was a time one winter night when my neighbors came running over, all in a panic over a "bright light" in the southwestern sky. They were absolutely sure it HAD to be a UFO. They knew I was into astronomy, so they came to ask me about it. I took one look at it, shrugged, and told them it was Sirius. No UFOs involved. I explained why Sirius looks the way it does, but I never went into any of the Greek myths (or Egyptian) associated with it.

Nor did I blather on about myths when I used to give astronomy talks at the local Nature Center. People would ask about the stars and planets and how to tell the difference, and I'd explain it. No mythology. No "storytelling."

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

it seems to me that there is no legitimately coherent point to be made that history is "useless,"

Well I don't disagree. I just took umbrage with your point about certain professions not existing until recently. Most of them existed long ago, just in a very different form due to the early stage of their advancement.

When I see the words "storyteller" and "astronomer" combined, I think of somebody reciting the ancient Greek myths (or Roman, Chinese, Native North American, etc.). However, there was a time one winter night when my neighbors came running over, all in a panic over a "bright light" in the southwestern sky. They were absolutely sure it HAD to be a UFO. They knew I was into astronomy, so they came to ask me about it. I took one look at it, shrugged, and told them it was Sirius. No UFOs involved. I explained why Sirius looks the way it does, but I never went into any of the Greek myths (or Egyptian) associated with it.

Nor did I blather on about myths when I used to give astronomy talks at the local Nature Center. People would ask about the stars and planets and how to tell the difference, and I'd explain it. No mythology. No "storytelling."

My astronomy professor told me a similar story, but with his car mechanic and Venus instead. Anyway, these myths were how ancient cultures interpreted the motions of celestial bodies. They were fanciful, yes, but they did learn much practical knowledge from these explanations such as the flow of the seasons (e.g inundation of the Nile in Egypt. Important for agriculture, obviously.), keep time, and even predict eclipses.

 

[Traitorfish]

Well I don't disagree. I just took umbrage with your point about certain professions not existing until recently. Most of them existed long ago, just in a very different form due to the early stage of their advancement.

That seems a bit teleological. Can we really claim that the 21st century division of labour is implicit in the 11th century division of labour?

When I see the words "storyteller" and "astronomer" combined, I think of somebody reciting the ancient Greek myths (or Roman, Chinese, Native North American, etc.). However, there was a time one winter night when my neighbors came running over, all in a panic over a "bright light" in the southwestern sky. They were absolutely sure it HAD to be a UFO. They knew I was into astronomy, so they came to ask me about it. I took one look at it, shrugged, and told them it was Sirius. No UFOs involved. I explained why Sirius looks the way it does, but I never went into any of the Greek myths (or Egyptian) associated with it.

Nor did I blather on about myths when I used to give astronomy talks at the local Nature Center. People would ask about the stars and planets and how to tell the difference, and I'd explain it. No mythology. No "storytelling."

I think that Crezth simply means that astronomers are in the business of constructing and communicating narratives. Not quite to the same extent as historians, granted, but true none the less.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

Not all of them would be, I suppose. I wouldn't know what the ancient form of a derivatives trader would be, for example. But there are certain occupations that will always be with us, astronomy and agriculture being good examples.

 

[Crezth]

When I see the words "storyteller" and "astronomer" combined, I think of somebody reciting the ancient Greek myths (or Roman, Chinese, Native North American, etc.). However, there was a time one winter night when my neighbors came running over, all in a panic over a "bright light" in the southwestern sky. They were absolutely sure it HAD to be a UFO. They knew I was into astronomy, so they came to ask me about it. I took one look at it, shrugged, and told them it was Sirius. No UFOs involved. I explained why Sirius looks the way it does, but I never went into any of the Greek myths (or Egyptian) associated with it.

Nor did I blather on about myths when I used to give astronomy talks at the local Nature Center. People would ask about the stars and planets and how to tell the difference, and I'd explain it. No mythology. No "storytelling."

I'm not sure why you're taking issue with such a hollow classification, unless you were trying to imply that astronomy is "useful, unlike that verdammt storytelling."

Well I don't disagree. I just took umbrage with your point about certain professions not existing until recently. Most of them existed long ago, just in a very different form due to the early stage of their advancement.

Not exactly the point I was trying to make. Recency isn't exactly the question, but you can point to ancient tribal civilizations and find a distinct lack of modern engineers. You probably couldn't find any such lack of storytellers.

 

[LightSpectra]

Using the what? A quick trip to the dictionary tells me it has something to do with 70 or 72 scholars, Ptolemy II, and so on. I've never heard of this.

Perhaps you should refrain from making strong claims about Biblical archaeology if you don't know literally the first thing about the subject.

The Septuagint, or LXX, is the Koine Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, which is what you're reading every time somebody in the New Testament is quoting the Hebrew Bible. This is to be contrasted with the Masoretic text, the Hebrew Bible in ancient Hebrew, whose manuscripts are older and suffers from a few textual corruptions.

Loads and loads of things have been discovered using the Septuagint after Europeans and Americans started working in the Middle East. A lot more than the Iliad, really, to contrast your comment that "at least something was found [from it]".

It's a documentary I saw YEARS AGO - I don't recall the exact title. I've seen lots of archaeology documentaries, though, so I'll see what I can find online - maybe a title/description will tweak my memory.

Perhaps you should refrain from making strong claims about Biblical archaeology if you have no sources to substantiate anything you claim.

There's no need for such hostility, 'k?

What hostility?

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

Not exactly the point I was trying to make. Recency isn't exactly the question, but you can point to ancient tribal civilizations and find a distinct lack of modern engineers. You probably couldn't find any such lack of storytellers.

Fair enough. But they still had healers. I don't know if elders mediating disputes could be considered lawyers.

 

[Crezth]

Fair enough. But they still had healers. I don't know if elders mediating disputes could be considered lawyers.

Yes, "healers." Modern doctors may be their spiritual successors but they are sufficiently different that it really does cast into doubt the notion that a society requires this or that of our conveniences moderne to thrive.

 

[Agent327]

I'm not sure why you're taking issue with such a hollow classification, unless you were trying to imply that astronomy is "useful, unlike that verdammt storytelling."

'History' isn't about storytelling (in fact, there are quite of bit of good historians that are awful storytellers).

Returning to topic, however, in essence all science is 'useless' - although some have more practical implications than others. History then (or the recording of it), is especilly uselss, since humans, historically speaking, tend not to learn from past mistakes, but rather to over and over repeat them - despite their best efforts to the contrary.

 

[Zelig]

I legitimately don't understand. The structure of benzine already existed, therefor it cannot be said to be new.

It's knowledge that nobody had before, therefore it's new. Come on, put some effort into thinking this through - knowledge is is by definition information that people have, I at no point made any implication that the structure of benzene didn't exist.

Seriously, if you're arguing that "new knowledge" isn't a real thing, you're just having problems with terminology, and your objections are irrelevant to any point at hand.

The point is that the claim is self-defeating.

No it isn't, the predictive power of knowledge has no relation to the validity of an argument.

Let's recap:

The entire point of knowing anything (excepting stuff that's fun to know) is for the predictive ability.

What predicative ability does knowing the entire point of knowing things offer?

None at first glance, lots of meta-knowledge about humans is essentially worthless.

I don't get what your point in asking me the predictive qualities of various pieces of knowledge is?

The point is that the claim is self-defeating.

I thought we were discussing the value of history vis a vis Science, not the value of history vis a vis Philosophy.

I don't really understand what you're discussing, you mostly seem to be getting worked up over perceived slights to history as a subject.

Well, what is it?

Anthropology that was already known at some point (ie. history falls in this category) is pretty obviously not new knowledge.

A fact that was never known, and which remain true irrespective of the existence of humanity is pretty obviously new knowledge.

Other things (anthropology which wasn't known in the past, and rediscovered non-anthropological knowledge falls somewhere in-between)

Returning to topic, however, in essence all science is 'useless'

This is pretty obviously not the case with any commonly accepted definition of "usefulness".

 

[Traitorfish]

Anthropology that was already known at some point (ie. history falls in this category) is pretty obviously not new knowledge.

A fact that was never known, and which remain true irrespective of the existence of humanity is pretty obviously new knowledge.

Other things (anthropology which wasn't known in the past, and rediscovered non-anthropological knowledge falls somewhere in-between).

Known by who? Just by any other human? And if any other human, why not any other sentient mind? It's possible that the inhabitants of some distant planet have discovered the structure of benzine, for example, so should we refrain from stating whether this was or was not "new knowledge"?

 

[dutchfire]

I take it you all believe in Scientific Realism then?