Poll: History, an important subject?
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"Doctor, the patient has hepatitis. What course of action do we take?"Dys said:
"Hmm, I dunno. What have doctors done in the past?"
"Umm.... I dunno. No one wrote it down or studied it."
"Blast! Well... hepatitis is in the blood, right? What if we drain out all the blood?
"We could try it! Makes sense to me if you just got rid of the bad blood, the hepatitis would go with it!"
"OK, get a bucket and a needle. Prick the patient's finger and put his hand in the bucket. Let him bleed it out for a couple days and we'll see how he feels then."
And that was the fourth time doctors discovered that blood-letting doesn't work. In 2009.
I like history. It's the bright part of my day. I especially like my class, they're a bunch of idiots. I was the only one who knew who Winston Chuchill was, what the Cuban Missile Crisis was, and what the Patriot Act was. I was happy and sad at the same time.
As someone doing a history major I can say the following: History is important because it affects today. Look at all the politcal strife in the world, all the contention between nations and you can find a root somewhere back in time. So is history itself a vital subject: No, you can live a perfectly happy life without knowing anything of the past. However, without knowledge of the past, you can't really understand why things happen today.
The problem here is that I don't see how studying history has ever prevented mankind from repeating its mistakes. There's not much of a reference point either way; I guess we'll never know.Numb1lp said:
That said: "There's a good reason why nobody studies history, it just teaches you too much."
Obviously older, valid medical theories are taught, and still used. You seem to think that if a doctor doesn't study history in highschool that they will somehow skip the entirety of their medicine degree, that is, of course, retarded. All study is based on histroy, I seem to recall saying that I don't think history is a complete waste of time. Seriously, You're example involves doctors completely disregarding all medical knowledge.300lb. Samoan said:
Shockingly, I don't claim history relevent to ones profession is irrelivent. Rather, I claim that history in the capacity it was taught to me in highschool, was an absoloute and complete waste of my time. You're more than welcome to go back and re-read what I've written.
I'm more than a little disheartended when the arts students of the world have trouble comprehending the opinions of others.
Your name sounds vaguely familiar....AlotMoreSanity said:
To respond to your comment: Actually, my history classes (at university) rarely asks dates. Only High schools ask dates on a regular basis.
History useless? Hell no. That doesn't mean you have to like it or be interested in it but literally everything has a historical aspect to it and an understanding of history and historiography is, if not essential than at least important in pretty much every field you care to name - including medicine.
Edit: I should point out that the History that they teach in school is generally only important to the learning of history so I can see why there are so many who seem to think it's useless. You need to learn history in the context of something else for it to actually become relevant. I mean learnig dates and names is all well and good if you want to learn dates and names but history is so much more than that and in general school-taught history fails to reckognise this.
Edit: I should point out that the History that they teach in school is generally only important to the learning of history so I can see why there are so many who seem to think it's useless. You need to learn history in the context of something else for it to actually become relevant. I mean learnig dates and names is all well and good if you want to learn dates and names but history is so much more than that and in general school-taught history fails to reckognise this.
History is very important. But like many important things, it can be boring.
I found Australian history (which was mandatory at school) incredibly dull, however I enjoyed ancient history (studying Pompeii, Sparta, Athens, Xerxes and a bit of Egypt) extremely engaging. But then, I do like wars and amusing spartan rituals that involve cheese and gratitious violence.
I didn't take modern history because I was more interested in the ancient stuff so I can't really comment on that.
I found Australian history (which was mandatory at school) incredibly dull, however I enjoyed ancient history (studying Pompeii, Sparta, Athens, Xerxes and a bit of Egypt) extremely engaging. But then, I do like wars and amusing spartan rituals that involve cheese and gratitious violence.
I didn't take modern history because I was more interested in the ancient stuff so I can't really comment on that.
I think that asking "how is it useful" you kinds miss the point of science. Knowledge can be considered valuable in an of itself, any application thereof is a bonus.
That said, I can see why some people can't take that point of view and must ask "how is this relevant to my life". Well, the truth is, you don't know. Nobody does. You can't tell how some piece of information will affect your life in the future. A good rule of thumb is take in as much knowledge as possible. You can't take it all in, however, so it comes down to personal preference, you study what you want to as much as you want to -- but never be as limited in your mindset as to only study things that are in direct relation to what you hope your future profession is.
Or be just as limited as you wish, it's your life.
That said, I can see why some people can't take that point of view and must ask "how is this relevant to my life". Well, the truth is, you don't know. Nobody does. You can't tell how some piece of information will affect your life in the future. A good rule of thumb is take in as much knowledge as possible. You can't take it all in, however, so it comes down to personal preference, you study what you want to as much as you want to -- but never be as limited in your mindset as to only study things that are in direct relation to what you hope your future profession is.
Or be just as limited as you wish, it's your life.
Everything ever achieved through the history of man kind has been achieved through the magic of trial and error. So unless we remember the previous trials and errors, we forget how we got here, and all the accumulated knolledge is lost.
I've seen the poll results, and I'm going to say to those who said no: "Fuck you" At least most people said yes 
I'm doin' a history degree right now by the way, but I'm gonna try to remain objective
It's not useless at all. History is vital. Whether you are interested in it or not, mankind can only advance by learning from it's mistakes. You can only bypass these mistakes by looking at history.
Case in point: Don't invade Russia. Napoleon tried it, he failed. Kaiser Wilhelm got caught in a war on 2 fronts (Russian and European), he failed. Hitler also fought in Russia and Europe at the same time, he also failed. These men did not learn from history, and thusly they failed.
Your argument that "you dont HAVE to lean it, and it's not important" is completely flawed. I dont HAVE to learn maths, I hated it in high school and it bored the fuck out of me. I've never used a single fukcing thing I learned in maths in my day to day life. However I understand that maths is vital to our understanding of pretty much everything. Just because it was useless to me, it dont mean that it's useless to everyone else.
In short, open your fucking mind.
I'm doin' a history degree right now by the way, but I'm gonna try to remain objective It's not useless at all. History is vital. Whether you are interested in it or not, mankind can only advance by learning from it's mistakes. You can only bypass these mistakes by looking at history.
Case in point: Don't invade Russia. Napoleon tried it, he failed. Kaiser Wilhelm got caught in a war on 2 fronts (Russian and European), he failed. Hitler also fought in Russia and Europe at the same time, he also failed. These men did not learn from history, and thusly they failed.
Your argument that "you dont HAVE to lean it, and it's not important" is completely flawed. I dont HAVE to learn maths, I hated it in high school and it bored the fuck out of me. I've never used a single fukcing thing I learned in maths in my day to day life. However I understand that maths is vital to our understanding of pretty much everything. Just because it was useless to me, it dont mean that it's useless to everyone else.
In short, open your fucking mind.
Ssssshhhh! It's asking if history is important. Most people said yes!Wadders said:
Yep, this is pretty much it.ma55ter_fett said: