Spyman-

It depends on how it is reached. If the information comes from archeological digs then it is scientific because for the most part archaeologists and anthroologists follow the scientific method. A hisorian reporting the fact that livy says the Goths came from Scandanavia, however, is not a scientific statement. In other words you can arrive at historical conclusions through science, but with some exceptions, historians do not use a scientific method to reach their historical conclusion.

Santa, your example is marginal. I can imagine other US states introducing more history or social studies. Irrelevant.

Zmaj, my english isn't this good but if it seems quite understandable to me.
I said try to predict, and not predict (first), it's not a sure thing and in fact I said it's not a science (even if I could expand this question). And I left an example of one (of possible thousands) prediction, not interpretation. Prediction -> before, interpretation -> after.

I am quite getting your way of debating, but are you willing to voluntarily misread what people write? Please don't. This is a debate, and you shuold specify why you say what you say. Which you are not doing. (example: "You can predict anything." Why? And so on). I would be happy to read your reasoning, not only your statement: I have a lot to learn.

Regarding science&history, I find that the point is: how scientific are the basis? If I observe clearly ALL the details forming the core of an event, I could link those causes and that event. But what chances are there to observe, in the future, the same identical causes to predict the same event?

The goal of government schools has always been to make good little conformist worker drones who do what they're told and don't cause trouble. Teaching the inmates about things like rebellions against the ruling elite (in all their many forms - not all of them are on the battlefield) is not in the interest of an orderly society.

If you can't get away with not teaching it, the second best thing is to take out all the important stuff and cut what's left with pablum like "life of women on the frontier".

"A hisorian reporting the fact that livy says the Goths came from Scandanavia, however, is not a scientific statement."

Livy is a source of data, just as archeological remains are a source of data. Perhaps we can say the Livy is less reliable than archeology, but clearly he is not considered entirely unreliable otherwise historians would not take any notice of him. I wonder if in science there are the equivalents of Livy - sources of data which are useful but not entirely reliable: that is sources of data which are noisy, but which are still enlightening especially when used with corroborating evidence (just as Livy may be used in conjunction with archeology). Take the science of climate change, ice cores are useful and necessary, but on their own might not tell the whole story.

There is going to be history taught. No society can avoid giving some explanation for why things are the way they are, and what the society is about. Can you imagine a society that didn't teach history in some way, shape or form? I can't.

For me the chief utility of the study of history is to understand human nature. Human nature--the good, the bad, the ugly, the noble, the brave, the craven, the weak, the brilliant, the destructive, the creative--what more useful and more fascinating thing is there to study?

History is useful for making predictions only if you can understand what events cause the historical results. Just learning facts doesn't make it useful, but that's the way history is taught until college level. Even then only a few courses analyze the reasons behind historical events.

Patton studied Rommel's battles to figure out how to beat him in North Africa during World War II.

"For me the chief utility of the study of history is to understand human nature. Human nature--the good, the bad, the ugly, the noble, the brave, the craven, the weak, the brilliant, the destructive, the creative--what more useful and more fascinating thing is there to study? "

In my view history quite explicitly shows that there is no such thing as human nature or that society buries it so deep it is nearly irrelevant. How can there be human nature if people vary so greatly over time and distance, and how do we attribute any similarities between people in different times and places to human nature when we can easly see how these similarities are constructed by societal factors rather than some natural impulse.

Just my critique and that of many people i know who teach history. Want to drop a grade in a history class? Attribute something to "human nature"

"Santa, your example is marginal. I can imagine other US states introducing more history or social studies. Irrelevant."

A whole U.S. State is marginal. Got it. I love your argument style Zmaj.

I heartily disagree, and I'm a little shocked. If there is no common human nature, how can I comprehend the motives and the thoughts of people far removed from me, such as the Greeks who (like me) appreciated Homer's Odyssey? Why would that have any meaning for me if not due to a common human nature? Yes, there were differences in society and its structures, but humanity was the same. What point is there in studying the ancient Egyptians, or the medieval Europeans, or even the 20th Century Chinese, if you don't think that there is a common human nature? You can't put yourself into their place, imagine their motives and their experiences, if you treat them like they were some other species! The entire study of history relies upon the assumption that we can comprehend the human experience of the past.

In my opinion we can comprehend human experience, but how does it follow that there is a human nature that must guide that experience. Sure there are themes in history, but don't we create those themes ourselves in order to comprehend the lessons and the nature of the past? Do you really thing that we can comprehend the actions and motivations of a person from the medieval period without comprehending the societal norms and strictures that surround them?

I \disagree the "humanity" of the medieval period is the same as the "humanity" of today. If there is a human nature can you pinpoint it? Can you say that is human nature? Can you learn how populations act under certain circumstances? Sure. But can you look at several of those events and isolate a specific human nature? Suggest that to a historian and watch him/her cringe.

not saying its wrong, I'm just saying I don't agree, and adding that it probably shouldn't be shocking that someone thinks like that.

What is human nature

Love?
Desire for power?
Desire for Freedom?
Faith?
The search for knowledge?

All of things have changed immensely in the relatively insignificant period of the last 1000 years. Some have even been invented along the way.

That is why we have to study the history, to know the structures and norms of society, to understand the experience of those people.

I can understand that Frederick Douglass was remarkable without much study, because I am human as he was. I can see that he was smart, eloquent, and courageous. But the more I study his time, his circumstances, and the condition of slaves, the more that human connection grows. Now he is truly an amazing figure, to have risen from slavery to such command of the language, and to be consulted by the President of the US. So the study of history enhances my ability to appreciate the *human* story of Frederick Douglass.

And what barrier is there to my understanding the story of Abelard and Heloise, the tragic medieval love story, from the 12th Century! So many years ago, but because I am human, and they are human, I can imagine and relate to them. Yes, it is very helpful for me to understand the sexual norms of the time, the attitudes of the Church, etc. but none of that is necessary for me to hear to anguish of their lost love in their letters to each other.

All of those things you mention are human nature. The modes of expression have changed, but there is not much difference between 21st Century me, working hard to support a family, believing in my own religion, loving my wife, wanting the government to leave me the hell alone, and any other man who does those same things, in any time or place.

"Sure there are themes in history, but don't we create those themes ourselves in order to comprehend the lessons and the nature of the past?"

History is driven by people. People are programmed by biology (nature) as much as they are free actors - we all have a fairly universal set of wants and needs that we seek to satisfy. Starving Parisians will rise up against Louis XVI just as starving ancient Egyptians will rise up against a Pharaoh. Romans will refuse to fight in unpopular wars, just as Americans refused to fight in Vietnam. I am also shocked to find that this kind of analysis is considered cringeworthy by academia.

"Do you really thing that we can comprehend the actions and motivations of a person from the medieval period without comprehending the societal norms and strictures that surround them?"

Understanding the norms of the times are certainly critical, but to suggest that they are *all* one needs to know and understand seems strange to me. It is interesting to me that you point to the medieval period, as I think that was a time where human nature played an even *greater* part in determining the course of history than in times where great nation-states have broad powers to enforce unnatural conformities on its subjects. When reading Froissart or some other medieval chronicles I think a degree in psychology or sociology often gives you a better insight into what is going on than a clear understanding of this or that informed historical conceptualization of the time.

"History is driven by people. People are programmed by biology (nature) as much as they are free actors - we all have a fairly universal set of wants and needs that we seek to satisfy. Starving Parisians will rise up against Louis XVI just as starving ancient Egyptians will rise up against a Pharaoh. Romans will refuse to fight in unpopular wars, just as Americans refused to fight in Vietnam. I am also shocked to find that this kind of analysis is considered cringeworthy by academia."

The human nature that people have to eat was obviously not the kind of human nature that the above poster was speaking of. If it was I concede hungry people do get cranky. Biology without a doubt guides the human experience, but is History really the study of whether human beings need to eat, sleep and crap?

"It is interesting to me that you point to the medieval period, as I think that was a time where human nature played an even *greater* part in determining the course of history than in times where great nation-states have broad powers to enforce unnatural conformities on its subjects."

And what is this Human nature that drove this period? How is that human nature seen today, after all it is human nature and remains unchanged desspite changes in time and place.

"All of those things you mention are human nature. The modes of expression have changed, but there is not much difference between 21st Century me, working hard to support a family, believing in my own religion, loving my wife, wanting the government to leave me the hell alone, and any other man who does those same things, in any time or place."

Men in the other time and place you speak of did not marry for love, nor did they necessarily love there wives, marriage was an alliance, pure and simple. If it is human nature to love your wife (as it seems you think it is) why would marriage in the medieval period be decided purely by economic considerations? So does a man really do the same in all time and places?

"And what barrier is there to my understanding the story of Abelard and Heloise, the tragic medieval love story, from the 12th Century! So many years ago, but because I am human, and they are human, I can imagine and relate to them."

Couldn't it also be that the story of Abelard and Heloise were instrumental in helping to form your conceptions of love?

Did the United States make a mistake by not being better prepared in December of 1941? After the Roosevelt administration put an embargo on petroleum and scrap iron exports to Japan what would the state department use to predict Japanese reactions, history of course. Japan attacked Port Arthur without a declaration of war to cripple the Russian Pacific Fleet at the beginning of the Russo-Japanese War. Why wouldn't an understanding of history inform American policy in 1941 as a result? If you saw the houses in your neighborhood increase in value steadily over a decade and read stories about banks putting too much of their loan portfolios into mortgages would you leave your IRA investments in financial stocks knowing the history of the Great Recession? If you went to the same mechanic over and over and always had a problem would you keep going back now the history of his work? The ability to analyze the past, history, seems to serve a useful function.

Well, I never heard of Abelard until I was in college, though I'm guessing your response to that will be that we inherited the chivalric version of love from the French bards or something, right? :-P

Also, I think it is simplistic and wrongheaded to think that there was not love *within* marriages, even if those marriages started for economic or other reasons. And indeed, while that may have been the purpose of marriage for the upper crust, were the hoi polloi marrying for money, or for status? I doubt it. I suspect, people being people, that Joe Schmo of the horde of the Great Khan saw some hot mongolian babe in the tribe, and that he wanted some of that, and that he went through whatever courting practice they had. Is that really so different from now? And if Joe was somebody whose marriage mattered, and had to be arranged for whatever reason, that doesn't preclude the existence of a loving companionable relationship developing. I suspect that is the norm, rather than the exception.

I'd agree with Emac I think, but not because the events necessarily give us an answer, but because act of analysis itself (and yes to a certain extent, precedent) is crucial to understanding the problems we are facing. But my understanding of the discipline changes.

"Also, I think it is simplistic and wrongheaded to think that there was not love *within* marriages, even if those marriages started for economic or other reasons"

For sure there was love in marriage at times, and at other times there was not. But if you are going to make a human nature argument short of "human beings love one another at times" which i think you would agree is hardly useful, how can you compare a society where love is based on choice and another where it is perscribed for economic reasons? And in my understanding marriages were made for similar reasons for the "hoi pilloi" you wouldn't strengthen your demense, bu you might get a hog out of it. The conception of Romantic love/ marriage was a foreign concept.

The academic discipline seems to focus on turning large bodies of primary sources into coherent information for readers to make sense out of. It seems like the historian has to have the patience to spend immense amounts of time on long-term research, and then turn the analysis of that research into a story using the gifts of a writer. I'm not an academic at all. I do enjoy reading the output of academics immensely. The thing about history I have no clue about is how the historian finds a common thread to build a narrative around in all those mountains of individual documents.

I remain unconvinced that it was always so coldly economic. I don't doubt that played a significant role, and the older my kids get the more I understand the reasoning. LOL But even the stories of the ancient greeks have a place for romantic love. I don't think it's a purely medieval construct.

"Men in the other time and place you speak of did not marry for love, nor did they necessarily love there wives, marriage was an alliance, pure and simple. If it is human nature to love your wife (as it seems you think it is) why would marriage in the medieval period be decided purely by economic considerations?"

While marriages were certainly arranged for political and economic concerns among the upper crust of medieval society, where is the evidence that marriages among the non-elites of the medieval period were similarly arranged? ("Now Eleanor, I know you're in love with the blacksmith's son, but you must marry Jaques - his family owns the town's ox, and the alliance between our families would give us a discount on the rental and make plowing our plot a breeze...") And even among the elites, there are the occasional stories (in the early medieval period anyway) of the daughter of Count X eloping with the young, brave, and handsome Count Y against daddy's wishes, or of Richard I suddenly breaking off a very politically important engagement with a French princess to marry Berengaria, a woman of far lesser political importance. In addition, as you well know, the keeping of mistresses was *extremely* common (almost universal) among the men of the period who married for position - arrangements that did occasionally have some lasting effects. So yes, romantic love is a fundamental aspect of human nature that does play a part in the unfolding of history.

See the first part, refering to what will be on the test: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yocja_N5s1I

+1 to SantaClausowitz for starting an interesting thread which is not about theism versus atheism.

Good link, orathaic! I like it.

Tolstoy, the convention of courtly love was not a reality, and actually very rarely, even in the stories, featured love being fulfilled. You can call BS all you want, and I'm not going to take the time to marshal my sources, but if you pick up a medieval textbook you will see there is truth in what i am saying. No one is saying love doesn't exist, love afterall is related to some degree to those biological forces we discussed, but I think the fact that it had such less importance during this period and took such a different form shows that there is nothing static and immutable about our conception of love

ddip- Yes there was love in the greek period, care to remind me what love in the most pure form was back then? Tell me that love as a facet of human nature remains unchanged when the ideal form three thousand years ago was between a man and a boy.

Perhaps I am just not understanding what you mean by human nature but again, I would see any common thread from even just the western tradition as either too simplistic or contrived. This does not even take into account non-western forms.

Thanks spy man, hope it keeps going like this and isn't hijacked.