Difference Between Historians and Scientists

Difference Between Historians and Scientists Yong Jia Bu Theory of Knowledge History and the Human Sciences: Stepping Stones through Time Title #5: â€Å"The historian’s task is to understand the past, the human scientist, by contrast, is looking to change the future.† To what extent is this true in these areas of knowledge? History and the human sciences are considered two different areas of knowledge, but are common in that both are concerned with human existence and interactions. To say that â€Å"[t]he historian’s task is to understand the past, the human scientist, by contrast, is looking to change the future† suggests a method of distinguishing between these two areas of knowledge based on the time frame relevant to each, and the purposes for which each area obtains knowledge: history focuses on analysis of past events, their causes and implications, while human sciences, such as geography and psychology, seek more to find patterns in human activity in order to predict and change the future. Subjects such as geopolitics and evolutionary anthropology can, however, bridge the time gap between history and the human sciences, and cause the purposes of knowledge in these two areas to overlap as well. In these particular subjects, understanding the past and changing the future are not neces sarily divergent purposes, but purposes which can work hand in hand to allow a knower to acquire and make use of knowledge. The quotation in the topic of this paper suggests that history is an area of knowledge which places a greater emphasis on understanding the past than on using the acquired knowledge to achieve goals or to alter the trajectory of future events. One reason why this attitude toward history might exist is that out of the vast collection of past events studied in this discipline, the majority of subjects are believed to be too distant in the past or too far removed from the concerns of today’s society to be of significant influence to the future. While this claim is likely not true, as knowledge is almost always pursued because it has value and applications, this belief indirectly reveals the expectations of a credible historian to record and interpret historical knowledge in the most accurate form possible, and that he or she is not motivated to influence the present or future by putting forth historical information that supports personal agendas. A credible historian is therefore someone who uncovers and makes sense of the past for the sake of understanding what has come before. A credible historian recognizes that the knowledge gained his or her studies can be relevant to or have value in the present and future, but does not attempt to control how the knowledge may become influential to society. When I researched the topic of whether Louis Riel, a Canadian politician and rebel during the late 1800’s, should have been sentenced to death for treason, my goal was to gain a better understanding of who Riel was and the circumstances surrounding his death, and then to evaluate the events based on the information I had gathered. In presenting my findings, I needed to show that the conclusions I came to had been achieved through consistent and impartial treatment of historical evidence, and that although my findings may eventually challenge or disprove other positions, the focus on my research was to better understand historical events rather than to promot e what I believed to be true. While I cannot consider myself a credible historian, I believe that those who can would go through a similar process in their studies, in which the historian investigates, makes sense of, and communicates his or her findings without actively aiming to change the future. In this way, a historian’s main concern is to understand the past, despite awareness of the potential implications that their pursuit and refinement of historical knowledge can have on the future. In some cases, although events may have occurred centuries ago, their consequences can continue to affect the lives of people for a long time, and the way that historians interpret evidence surrounding such events can significantly influence the decisions made by individuals or even entire nations. Society may actively pursue historical knowledge in order to solve problems concerning the future. The establishment of political boundaries, though it may fall within field of geopolitics and therefore the human sciences, is closely tied to and influenced by historical land claims and records of settlement. In the Senkaku or Diaoyu Islands dispute, Japan, China, and Taiwan all claim to have sovereignty over a set of uninhabited islands in the East China Sea based on historical records and proceedings (Drifte 11). The Chinese claim is based on documents from the fourteenth to seventeenth centuries that describe ownership of the islands by Taiwan, which China also claims to be part of its o wn country. Disputes also revolve around the Treaty of Shimonoseki of 1895, which ceded islands under Chinese control to Japan but did not specifically mention the Senkaku or Diaoyu Islands (Drifte 12). The understanding of historical events and interpretation of historical documents thus play an important role in shaping the political future, as they are used by governments and international organizations to negotiate territorial boundaries. This field exemplifies how the historian’s role is to look equally toward understanding the past and changing the future. In comparison to history, the human sciences are associated with a more present-to-future time frame. Human scientists recognize the importance of understanding the past observations and studies that their knowledge is based upon, but it is the application of existing knowledge to new situations and problems that is the purpose at the centre of the human sciences. One goal of a human geographer may be to predict the volume and direction of human migration to and from a nation, so that this information can be used to help shape a nation’s future migration policies and perhaps prevent demographic changes not desired by the nation. To do this, the geographer would need to have background knowledge such as the theory of push and pull factors of migration, which consists of â€Å"laws of migration† developed by Ernest George Ravenstein in 1885, and modified by later geographers. Ravenstein’s theory outlines general patterns in the movement of people from one place to another, such as that â€Å"[m]igrants proceeding long distances generally go by preference to one of the great centres of commerce or industry† (Corbett), and while Ravenstein and later contributors must have based their conclusions on studies of specific migratory cases, the statements within the theory do not include details regarding the specific past occurrences that the theory is derived from. The principles of migration listed in this theory act as a condensed body of knowledge that can be learned and applied to current conditions to make predictions about migration trends in the future, which can subsequently prompt actions to avert undesired outcomes. As extensive understanding of the origins of current theories does not necessarily improve the effectiveness of their use, it is not considered essential that human scientists focus their time on understanding past developments which led to the formation of current theories. Rather, human scientists are encouraged to lo ok toward changing the future by readily using the latest complication of knowledge in their field. There are also disciplines which, although considered human sciences, are very concerned with understanding the past. Evolutionary anthropologists seek both to investigate the origins of human beings, as well as to change future scientific paradigms based on new discoveries. In 2013, anthropologists working in southern Georgia excavated 1.8 million-year-old skulls of human ancestors which â€Å"ha[ve] forced scientists to rethink the story of early human evolution† (Sample), because the existence of these early humans in Europe at the same time as the existence of early humans in Africa undermines the widely accepted theory that humans evolved from species that originated in Africa. Regardless of whether this discovery leads to a new evolutionary theory, it illustrates how in one way, the purpose of knowledge in evolutionary anthropology is to seek understanding of the past as historians would—by investigating the collective origins and past of the human species— while in another way, the evolutionary anthropologist also seeks to change the future of the discipline by challenging the accepted theories and paradigms of today. Understanding the past and changing the future can thus be equally important objectives in the advancement of the human sciences. When a knower strives to change the future, he or she often realizes the need to understand the past in order to better predict the outcomes and consequences of his or her actions. Conversely, in attempting to understand the past, a knower may be motivated to modify existing approaches toward knowledge to change the future. Subjects within history and the human sciences may lean closer to either the purpose of understanding the past or the purpose of changing the future, but are likely some combination of the two. As history and the human sciences are thus difficult to distinguish on the basis of time frame and purpose of knowledge, additional consideration of their differences in methodologies or sources of evidence may aid in clarifying the differences between the natures of these two areas of knowledge. Word count: 1479 Works Cited Corbett, John. â€Å"Ernest George Raventstein: The Laws of Migration, 1885.† Centre for Spatially Integrated Social Science. University of California, Santa Barbara, 2011. Web. 26 Nov. 2013. Drifte, Reinhard. The Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands Territorial Dispute between Japan and China: between the Materialization of the â€Å"China Threat† and Japan â€Å"Reversing the Outcome of World War II†? The Research Unit on International Security and Cooperation (UNISCI), May 2013. PDF file. Sample, Ian. â€Å"Skull of Homo Erectus Throws Story of Human Evolution into Disarray.† The Guardian. Guardian News and Media Limited, 17 Oct. 2013. Web. 24 Nov. 2013.

The Workforce

The workforce is contingent with the teamwork of personnel and state. The workforce remain the main concern of employers everywhere. All areas of employment are touched by economics and its affected by births, plus the quality of training each person receives. 100 years ago, jobs were manufacturing in nature, what I mean is that individuals worked in factories or on an assembly lines. These types of positions weren't very challenging because it's a situation that was repetitious as the worker repeat steps. Subsequently new technology happens to be more demanding, very aggressive and creative. Women are employed within position that once was considered â€Å"only men were productive in. Work shifts are divided into three shifts for several organizations. They're basically eight hours a shift and the employee usually work forty hours a week. Over the years the workforce has added four generation of workers. This has caused a distinctive effect on the workforce causing them to face the age differences. The HR knows that the workforce of the past consequencely will impact the future status of many organizations. They know that achieving their goal depends on how they hire workers. Also, the facts show that countless people are not retiring but are carrying on working well past the age of 65. HR specialists find that they're having to formulate additional resolutions to link the demands relating to the workforce with the aging workers. Which requires HR specialists to understand and be able to execute ways to create jobs and to fill them with acceptable workers. Meanwhile workers and jobs are always transforming so organizations realize that they have diversity and the skill to maintain a balanced workforce being competent to accomplish their goals for the future of the organization. Also, companies have moved to global level with improved technology and communication. Besides more women employees entered the workforce which was not the state 100 years ago where women lives tended to be centered around their families. During World War I changed who the workforce would use once the men were either volunteering or being drafted to serve in the military which resulted in there was no one to fill the positions. So businesses hired the women to work in the men's place. After showing the factories that the women were capable to carry out the duties that the men could do, but they were paid less for the same job. Since then women have demanded rights for equal pay and equal treatment. Because the workforce have become more diverse with gender, age, and culture it has caused organizations to change how they attain workers and maintain their numbers. The older workers are still present in the workforce is making HR to consider alternative ways for hiring, training, and what type of benefits plans to offer as enticements.Today HR managers needs to spend considerable time and money in training in new technology and keep them updated. The future US workforce groups in 2025 would be mostly aged population over 60 years. The workforce I filled with many kinds of technology such as computers, internet, smart phones and many mobile devices that has opened communication where everything seems to move at the speed of light. Therefore, HR will need to be on their toes to meet every task in the future.

Critical Analysis of Here by Philip Larkin

‘Here’ is a sprawling, moving and often majestic poem that takes the reader on a strikingly visual journey through the countryside and the town, before finally ending up on the coast. Larkin uses long, flowing sentences which add a sense of continual movement; these sentences are full of rich imagery and description which fully immerse the reader in the poem. The poem is titled ‘Here’, yet in the first three stanzas the poem takes in various locations and never stands still; the reader questions where ‘Here’ is, whether or not it is actually a specific, physical location. In ‘Here’, Larkin appears to be critical of the urban population, finding more beauty and appeal in the natural world than the human world, demonstrated by the fact that human presence in the poem is only temporary, fading away after the third stanza. The first word of the poem, ‘Swerving’, lends an immediate sense of physical movement to the poem. However, it is not the traditional, vehicular sort of movement; trains and cars do not swerve. The movement in ‘Here’ is immediately free and unrestrained, as the ‘rich industrial shadows’ are left behind. This freedom of movement however, immediately contrasts with the ‘traffic all night north’, which momentarily stops the poem in its tracks, made clear by the following semi-colon which breaks up the line. However, the poem immediately starts up again, with the repetition of the word ‘swerving’ which reinforces the sense of free movement. Now, Larkin takes us through the ‘fields/too think and thistled to be called meadows’, before the poem is again interrupted by the influence of the human world- the poem halts for the ‘Workmen at dawn’. Larkin then repeats ‘Swerving’ for a third time. On three different occasions the word is used; each time to the same effect. By the end of the first stanza the reader can be in no doubt that Larkin is taking them on a journey. In the first stanza, and indeed in the whole poem, there is a clear theme of the industrialized world interrupting the natural, rural world. Larkin presents a series of images; ‘skies and scarecrows, haystacks, hare and pheasants’ along with the meadows and ‘widening river’. These images are marred somewhat by the traffic and workmen, and ultimately the town which emerges in the second stanza. These nterruptions are summed up by Larkin as ‘harsh-named halts’. The contrast between country and city, between rural and urban, is another key theme in the poem. The freedom of ‘swerving’ through the countryside in the first stanza is replaced by the claustrophobic cluster of ‘domes and statues, spires and cranes’ which fill the large town. Even the water, which in the first stanza takes the form of a peaceful river, is ‘barge-crowded’ in the second stanza, again demonstrating the often negative influence of man. To add to the contrast, Larkin lists elements of the town (domes and statues†¦ in exactly the same manner as he lists elements of the countryside (skies and scarecrows†¦ ). Here, the ‘piled gold clouds’ have been replaced with the less appealing ‘grain-scattered streets’. Notably, the town is the first thing in the poem that is described as ‘Here’, perhaps hinting at the location of the poem’s title. Another contrast between the rural and urban settings of the poem is the differing types of movement. In the first stanza, the poem moves freely, ‘swerving’. In the second stanza, everything is more rigid; the journey of the city-dwellers from the ‘raw estates’ is described as ‘dead straight’. At this stage, Larkin is clearly critical not only of the urban population, but of their consumerist culture. They are described negatively as a ‘cut-price crowd’ only interested in their superficial ‘desires’. Larkin presents us with another selection of images; this time of unneeded consumer goods. ‘Electric mixers, toasters, washers, driers-’. The hyphen at the end of this list indicates the extreme quantity of these goods, something which Larkin quietly despises. The first stanza contains definite elements of hope; it is dawn, the journey is taking us away from the negatively described ‘industrial shadows’. Also, the stanza ends on a positive note; ‘the piled gold clouds’ and ‘shining gull-marked mud’ are beautiful descriptions of natural scenes untouched by human influence. However, the second stanza retains none of this positivity; the reader is trapped behind the ‘plate-glass swing doors’ of consumerism. Throughout the poem Larkin’s descriptions tend to rely less on descriptive adjectives, which appear infrequently, and more on series of images relating to the place being described. When descriptive adjectives are used, they are used to brilliant effect; the ‘luminously-peopled air’ and the ‘piled- gold louds’, but the lists of different images are more frequent and leave more of an impression. In the third stanza, Larkin presents an almost entirely negative list of images that he associates with the town; in fact, each list is almost a spontaneous word-association game for Larkin. When Larkin looks at the town as a whole, the description is not too unfavourable, mainly focusing on the buildings, however when he goes further down and looks at the town on a more personal level, the description is rather more cutting. The ‘fishy-smelling’ town is full of ‘tattoo-shops’ and consulates, and is only visited by ‘salesmen and relations’. With the latter point, Larkin may well be pointing out that living in a city, surrounded by houses and shops and people doesn’t guarantee fulfilment and fitting in; you can still be isolated whilst living in a town. Another point is that the edges of the town are described as ‘half-built edges’- the building is still in progress and the town is clearly expanding, possibly indefinitely. Larkin touches on the idea of loneliness again between the third and fourth stanzas. Here he describes how out in the countryside, beyond the realm of the city, the wheat-fields ‘Isolate villages, where removed lives/Loneliness clarifies. This full stop is the first in the poem; the three stanza sentence ends here, out in the isolated countryside. However, it is clear that the loneliness experienced in the isolated villages is not the same as that experienced in the towns. In the countryside, Larkin suggests that the loneliness and the isolation ‘clarifies’ your l ife; perhaps he means that, free from the consumerist ‘desires’ and ‘tattoo-shops’ life is less cluttered and busy, and somewhat perversely, less lonely, in spite of the physical isolation. The ending of the first sentence suggests that the poem’s journey is over, that we have finally arrived at Larkin’s location, ‘Here’. Here, there are no people; human influence is entirely absent from the final stanza. Instead, Larkin presents an image of intense natural beauty, where ‘Hidden weeds flower, neglected waters quicken/Luminously-peopled air ascends. ’ It’s an interesting idea that beauty is present where we aren’t looking, that it can be right in front of us and still go unnoticed. The poem comes to a rather sudden halt when the land suddenly ends at the ‘beach of shapes and shingle’. Larkin then states ‘Here is unfenced existence’. It is possible that he is referring to the beach, the coast and the sea, that freedom can only truly be found there, but by this point in the poem it appears more likely that ‘Here’ is less a physical location and more a state of mind. Once you arrive at the perfect mental state (‘Here’), ‘unfenced existence’ is finally possible.

Relationship Between A Middle Age Woman - 2011 Words

Relationship Paper As a middle age woman I had many relationships during the course of my life. The majority of them I did not actually chose, they just happened, such as my family relationships where I was basically born into and my professional relationships that happened only as a result of the circumstances. I also had my share of relationships that I actually had the opportunity to choose to be in and amazingly they are the ones that I seem to have more trouble with, my friendships and especially my romantic relationships. With most of my past romantic relationships once the relationship ended, even though I have been able to maintain friendly relationships with most of my past romantic partners, I really did not need to keep any†¦show more content†¦In a period of 6 months we found ourselves rushing through the intensifying ,integrating and bonding stage of the relationship since we started dating and publically presenting ourselves as a couple. About a year into the r elationship we moved in together and 6 months later I got pregnant and we decided to get married. At the begging communication seem to be wonderful as with most of the relationships at their early stages. We were polite, respectful and loving when we talked to each other. It was easy to express our needs and concerns. We did everything to show that we care about the other and that we were committed to the relationship. Our communication started to deteriorate fast as we started facing the reality that we were not emotionally and financially ready to be married and specially to have a child. Our relationship was mostly influenced by appearance and physical attractiveness. Sure at the beginning we thought we had a lot of things in common but we were only similar superficially. We had mutual friends, like the same activities, music and food however in a deeper level we did not give the relationship enough time to find out if we were really similar in a deeper level. Our social, educati onal and economic differences starting to become apparent as we faced the problems of the everyday live. We could not complement each other on anyway and that showed in