Is history useless?

Zelig said:
Well I was just looking for a term to cover "the study of subjects which only exist in the context of humanity", and couldn't think of anything better than "anthropology" to describe these.
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"The humanities" would probably be a good choice.
 
Dachs said:
Defining history as a subset of anthropology would seem to make anthropology such an absurdly large and all-encompassing "discipline" as to be a meaningless category. It's like defining chemistry as a subset of physics, instead of as a related field of study with some key principles deriving from certain physical laws and understandings of molecular behavior.
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Chemistry is a subset of physics.

edit: And some parts of it could be considered a subset of biology.
 
Pretty much any history of any science can provide plenty of examples. But to be specific, the last book I read, Sthephen Mythen's After the ice, a global human history 20,000-5,000 BC, the author indulges in imaginary timetravelling, by introducing an imaginary John Lubbock to tell his story. Which brings me to some of the earliest possible interpretations of prehistoric fossils as being 'magical' objects.

Flat earth.

The origin of life.

The origin of the universe.

God.

Gods.

What is the moon made of.

What is electricity.

What is magnetism.

What are stars.

Classical Greek philosopher's quirky ideas on elements. (To name just one.) Plato's ideal state.

Ether as a substance in astronomy.

Astrology.

Scientology. (Dachs should love this term, as well as the previous one.)

Etc. etc. Theories aplenty, usefulness zero. (But making for highly entertaining reading.)
 
Everything is useless. No matter what you do you will die, everyone you know will die, everything you do in your life will fade away, the sun will burn out, eventually all the stars will burn out and humanity will go extinct and the universe will be a dark, cold lifeless void. You won't care because you'll be dead, which is just as good as having never been born. So of course history is useless.
 
JEELEN said:
Pretty much any history of any science can provide plenty of examples. But to be specific, the last book I read, Sthephen Mythen's After the ice, a global human history 20,000-5,000 BC, the author indulges in imaginary timetravelling, by introducing an imaginary John Lubbock to tell his story. Which brings me to some of the earliest possible interpretations of prehistoric fossils as being 'magical' objects.
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Oh, that's what you meant. I thought you mean theories that were correct but had no practical purpose. The picture can get quite complex though. Miasma theory was wrong, but its practical implication (sanitation) is useful.

potatokiosk said:
Everything is useless. No matter what you do you will die, everyone you know will die, everything you do in your life will fade away, the sun will burn out, eventually all the stars will burn out and humanity will go extinct and the universe will be a dark, cold lifeless void. You won't care because you'll be dead, which is just as good as having never been born. So of course history is useless.
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I hope humanity doesn't start being that much of a hopeless pansy. I want far-flung future generations to be researching ways of creating new stars, galaxies, and universes as a gesture of contempt to the dying stars.
 
JEELEN said:
Ah, a purely personal interpretation. How 'useful'.
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Even your example of so-called useless or "wrong" theories aren't actually useless by any consistent metric. Practically, they serve a need in the human imagination; they satisfy human curiosity. Their very existence should bely the point that they are useless.

On the other hand, take a combination dicer/eggbeater/mixer. A marvel of mechanics. Can we really say such a curio is "more" useful to humanity than a theory of gravity? Or hell, a wrong theory? And even a wrong theory provides more fodder and direction to scientists than a simple machine.

There is no working definition of useful that classifies theoretical science as useless. It is obviously of some use to someone, and given the achievements made possible by theoretical science of great use to every "practical" scientist out there.

edit: I should add that, furthermore, just because you can identify some theories that supposedly have no value in the real world, that does not mean that the entire process of formulating theories is useless by the same standards.
 
For whatever it's worth, I've changed my mind on this whole subject, but I'm not sure how to express it without getting shot at.
 
Crezth said:
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."
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I never said storytelling isn't useful. But storytelling + astronomy = myths + astrology. Astrology is an interesting cultural phenomenon that has produced some great visual works of art, but it's NOT science and it's NOT history.
 
Crezth said:
There is no working definition of useful that classifies theoretical science as useless. It is obviously of some use to someone, and given the achievements made possible by theoretical science of great use to every "practical" scientist out there.

edit: I should add that, furthermore, just because you can identify some theories that supposedly have no value in the real world, that does not mean that the entire process of formulating theories is useless by the same standards.
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I think we can agree here. But I don't see any reason not to define theories leading to no practical application whatsoever as anything else but 'useless'.

Dachs said:
Why? :confused:
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I was being sarcastic:

astrology - aster (Lat.), logos (Gr.)

scientology - dito.
 
JEELEN said:
I think we can agree here. But I don't see any reason not to define theories leading to no practical application whatsoever as anything else but 'useless'.
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Why bother? They had their uses - it is why they exist. Just because we cannot see that usefulness now doesn't mean they never had that quality.
 
JEELEN said:
I was being sarcastic:

astrology - aster (Lat.), logos (Gr.)

scientology - dito.
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It's a mishmash word, not a mishmash transliteration. I couldn't give less of a damn.
 
Lord Baal said:
Kevlar. Good to see you've come to your senses.
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Kevlar won't stop me from getting shot at, and its backface signature against rifles leaves something to be desired.:D

Now, what changed my mind was a fine family party I had yesterday. It was at a lovely country house with a lake. There was fishing, archery, skeet shooting, and other worthwhile things. I was reminded that getting a quiet lakeside house with horses and wide open spaces is my goal in life, not any one career. Ideally, of course, my career would be the closest thing to enjoyable that work can possibly be. So long as I have that, I don't need to be "useful".

I know that CFCers will be coming out of the woodwork to dispute the existence of abstract constructs like "usefulness", "enjoyability", and "horses", but I don't care anymore. I still think that the study and teaching of history is still not as "useful" to society as, say, laying sewage systems or producing food, but if people want it, it's enjoyable, it harms none, and it pays well enough, whatever.
 
Horses are a tool of Imperialism.
 
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