Task 1 once upon a time

Question 1

Fire

Answer 1

helped the homo, spreading over the world
o True nature discovered in 18th century
o Three problems: Ignition, keeping the fire alive, which kind of fuel (improved by charcoal)
o Ignis mutat res: open fires are not as useful as closed ones (difference between cooking and roasting)
o Ovens: allow to bake, first ones were holes in the ground later bricks were used
o Pottery: used to cook food in it
o The technology of metals:
 Same time as language became written
 Things made can be undone (melting and forming something new)
o Glass: is made out of quartz which is found in sand

Question 2

Language

Answer 2

o Productivity: the ability to combine sounds and words in new ways to convey new messages
o Semanticity: messages convey a rich semantic meaning that is shared between speaker and listener
o Displacement: the ability to refer to things that are removed from the speaker in time and space

Question 3

Neolithic revolution

Answer 3

The transition from a nomadic hunter gatherer society to farming and settlement around 10.000 BCE
o Changed human interactions from cooperation and sharing to the protection of goods and increased level of conflict

Question 4

Fertile crescent

Answer 4

region in the middle east with high population, invention of the wheel

Question 5

Preliterate civilization

Answer 5

o Their skills are not based on understanding how thinks work but on practical rules of thumb what to do when
o Fluidity of knowledge
o Animism: Collection of myths and stories about the beginning of the universe, life and natural phenomena in which human traits are projected onto objects and events (e.g. in the form of gods)

Question 6

Philosophy

Answer 6

Critical reflection of the universe and human functioning started in Ancient Greece

Question 7

Renaissance

Answer 7

cultural movement from the 14th to the 17th century based on rediscovery and imitation of the classical Greek and roman civilisations (most prevalent in architecture and paintings) more logic reasoning

Question 8

Protestant reformation

Answer 8

16th century movement against the roman catholic church, which was important for the development of science because it emphasised the need for education, critical thinking hard work and worldly success

Question 9

the establishment of schools and universities

Answer 9

o Increased mobility of the scholars
o Discovery of the Ancient Greek and Arabic texts
o Growing impact of Aristotle’s works

Question 10

Zeitgeist

Answer 10

word used in the history of science to indicate that the time was right for a certain discovery; the discovery did not originate from a single genius, but from a much wider development leading to the discovery

Question 11

Groups

Answer 11

o Is identified by the number of individuals with whom an animal can maintain social relationships with personal contact
o The second point is that the limit imposed by neocortical processing capacity applies only to the number of individuals with whom a stable interpersonal relationship can be maintained. This in no sense commits us to any particular way of structuring those groups
o stands in direct. contrast to the conventional wisdom that language developed in the context of hunting, to enable early hominids to communicate about the location of possible prey and to plan coordinated hunting expeditions

Question 12

Social intelligence theory

Answer 12

Language is a tool for acquisition of social knowledge. It allows individuals to spend time with preferred social partners and thus directly observe others’ behavior

Question 13

Group size

Answer 13

o Small living groups of 30- 50 individuals (commonly measured as overnight camps but often referred to as bands in some of the hunter-gatherer literature)
o Large population unit (the tribe or subtribe) between 500 and 2,500
o Intermediate level (either a more permanent village or a culturally defined clan or lineage group) contains 100-200 people don’t always have an obvious physical manifestation instead, ritual functions
o Informal rule in business organization: 150 as the critical limit for the effective coordination of tasks and information flow through direct person-to-person links
• The larger the group the harassment and stress an individual faces

Question 14

Brain size and groups

Answer 14

Social skills are the connection between neocortical brain size and group size
o You can have 10-12 intense relationships
o The largest group size for efficient operations is 150

Question 15

Characteristics of writing system

Answer 15

o Combination of Pictograms: an information conveying sign that consists of a picture resembling the person, animal or object it represents
o Phonograms: signs to represent sounds of the spoken language

Question 16

External memory

Answer 16

provides information which is available at a certain point in time

Question 17

Scholastic method

Answer 17

study method on which students unquestioningly memorise and recite texts that are thought to convey unchanging truth

Question 18

Too much centered on individuals (bias in history writings

Answer 18

might give a false overview about the general academical level, individuals are not alone responsible for outcomes or inventions

Question 19

Matthew effect (bias in history writing)

Answer 19

the tendency to give more credit to well-known scientists than they deserve; increases the perceived impact of these scientists

Question 20

Hindsight bias (bias in history writing)

Answer 20

Facts are interpreted on the basis of what happened afterwards. We think the scientist knew more then they did

Question 21

Ethnocentrism (bias in history writing)

Answer 21

authors have a tendency to attach excessive weight to the contribution of their own group and the group of their readers

Question 22

History reviews are summaries of summaries (bias in history writing)

Answer 22

in which faults can happen and falsify the source of information for many people

Question 23

Counting

Answer 23

o Goes back to 35,000-20,000 BCE
o Subitising: the ability to count up to three (early counting)
o Place coding system: system in which the meaning of a sign not only depends on its form but also on its position in a string (fully in use 500 BCE)

Question 24

Religion

Answer 24

main factor for the decline of scientific advancement (Christians)

Question 25

book printing

Answer 25

allows mass production of books, which leads to wider spread information (1450)

Question 26

Ancient greeks

Answer 26

First culture to question nature of world. Although initially Greeks borrowed from Egypt and Mesopotamia, they soon added their own knowledge.
Plato and Aristotle
 Philosophy – Critical reflection on universe and human functioning

Question 27

Ancient Mesopotamia

Answer 27

Mathematical knowledge, Astronomy used for calendars for harvesting and planting

Question 28

Byzantine empire

Answer 28

: preservation of the legacy of the Ancient Greeks, east part of the roman empire

Question 29

Arabic empire

Answer 29

advanced Greek knowledge in medicine, astronomy, mathematics and politics, advanced Indian system into a much more mathematical system

Question 30

The remains of western roman empire

Answer 30

o Decreased access to Greek knowledge, because of lingua franca which shifted from Greek to Latin
o Dark ages: name given in the renaissance to the middle ages, to refer to the lack of independent and scientific in that age

Question 31

Plato

Answer 31

o Greek philosopher (427-348 BCE)
o Made a distinction between the realm of eternal, never-changing ideal forms and the realm of the ever-changing material reality in which these forms or ideas are imperfectly realised (an analogy used here is that we are in a cave and only see the shadows of the real forms)
o Method of knowledge: rationalism (truth is based on thinking not on information from the senses; humans have innate knowledge that can be recovered through deductive reasoning).

Question 32

Aristotle

Answer 32

o Greek philosopher (384–322 BCE)
o Student of Plato
o Biology (careful descriptions of animals and plants)
o Logic (defined the rules of logical thinking)
o Metaphysics (model of the cosmos consisting of the earth surrounded by different spheres and made of five elements: aether, air, earth, fire, water; animistic elements)
o Psychology (his book De Anima [On the Soul] would be central in teachings on psychology from the Renaissance until well into the eighteenth century)
o Productive knowledge, theoretical knowledge
left room for observations (still knowledge is based on reasoning)