Re: History of Disciplines

sfs98ud99 <*no_reply_at_yahoogroups.com*> · Sat, 03 Aug 2002 05:05:11 -0000

> Is this a peculiarity of historians simply attaching importance to 
> their own history as well as what they study, or do other disciplines 
> do this, too?  In science, out-dated models of the atom obviously 
> can't be taken into account in discussing how atoms work, but don't 
> they help illustrate how we got to the point we're at now, and where 
> we might go in the future?  Similarly, has Freud had any impact on 
> the things psychologists study, the concepts they use, and so on?  
> Was he the first to conceive of the subconscious, for example, and is 
> that still used?  And isn't someone that influential worthy of a 
> question?
> 
The social sciences, to a very large degree, retain a variety of
models that have been pretty much discredited because they can
occasionally provide relevant insights into the occasional case study,
if not shed light on debates between what may be considered more
relevant models.  Just because the mirror's been cracked doesn't mean
that you can't see anything clearly through it.

The hard sciences also do this - in many cases, people use older,
disproven theories because the issues that "better" theories work are
too complicated for work being done (the perhaps classic example of
this is the University of Delaware shirt that gives a reason to major
in chemical engineering as being that you can assume a cow is a
sphere).  In the context of solving problems, old theories may prove
perfectly acceptable in terms of accuracy while eliminating needless
complexity for simple issues.

Finally, it should be remembered that our current theory of how atoms
work is not necessarily held by everyone - science itself has numerous
disagreements (which is why we move from one theory to the next).  If
you wish to arrive at the "truth", there is certainly no harm in
taking a variety of different approaches and seeing where they put you.

Quiz bowl relevance is that someone wrote an analogy about putting
planks in the swamp that dealt with the above points and I've heard
his name come up once or twice.  John Stuart Mill's On Liberty also
addresses this subject from the approach of never silencing dissident
views.