Hellenistic age

The Hellenistic age begins with Alexander the Great’s conquest of the Persian empire and its incorporation into his vast, Macedonian-controlled state. Alexander reached as far as India, and although his empire was divided after his death, cultural connections between the subcontinent and the classical world began to flourish.

During the Hellenistic period, great advance in knowledge were made, while in other areas scientific study was diverted by erroneous theories which took centuries to erase from men’s minds.

Alexander was very interested in scientific study (as might be expected from student of Aristotle and took a number do scientist along with him on his campaigns.

Drunken old woman sculpture from Hellenistic era

The Hellenistic era also was a period of considerable cultural accomplishment in many areas of literature, art and philosophy.

The Ptolemies in Egypt made Alexandria an especially important cultural center. The library became the largest in ancient times, housing more than half a million scrolls.

Hellenistic age ends in more piecemeal fashion with Roman conquest one by one, of the various regions, now separate kingdoms, into which his empire had divided after his death. The Roman takeover of much of the Hellenistic world, hardly deliberate but a long-drawn process, which started in the late third century BC but was not complete till 30 BC with the overthrow of the Ptolemic dynasty after the Battle of Actium.
Hellenistic age

Chinese: recording Hours and Earthquakes

Wang Ching, a philosopher who lives in the 1st century AD, showed that the movements of the stars and the moon and eclipses, were predictable and could not have a magical effect on people’s lives.

Other scholars were at work on mathematics. Zhang Heng calculated a value for pi – the ration of the circle’s circumference to its diameter – which matches closely the figure used today.

In the land where earthquakes were a constant treat, he also made the world’s first seismograph to detect and record them.

At about the same time, the Chinese invented a water clock, and made accurate sundials marked off into 100 equals unit.

They calculated correctly the phases of the moon and the length of the solar year, and had system for writing decimal numbers.

Not all Han ideas were quite so scientific and most people shared the traditional belief in the forces of Yin and Yang.

Yin is weak, passive, female and dark, where Yang is strong, active male and bright. One could exist without the other, and all things are in constant state of flux between the two.

The moon is yin, the sun yang; day becomes night but night will place to day. The forces were symbolized by a circle divided into dark and light halves by a curved line, each half containing a spot of the other’s color.

The Han state was run on the principles of Confucius, a Chinese philosopher born about 551 BC.

His code valued an orderly way of life and the advantages of all people knowing their place in the society, but did not cater for spiritual needs. And neither did the native Chinese beliefs – in stern ancestor spirits and nature gods – offer any hope of personal salvation.

So there was a spiritual vacuum and after the 1st century AD the religion of Taoism (or Daoism) moved to fill it.
Chinese: recording Hours and Earthquakes

Physical Anthropology and the Scientific Method

Science is a process of understanding phenomena through observation, generalization and verification. By this it means that there is an empirical approach to gaining information through the use of systematic and explicit techniques.

Because biological anthropologists are engaged in scientific pursuits, they adhere to the principles of the scientific method, whereby a research problem is identified and information is then gathered in order to solve it.

The gathering of information is referred to as data collection. And when scientists use rigorously controlled approach, they are able to describe precisely their techniques and results in a manner that facilitates comparisons with the work of others.

Once facts have been established, scientists try to explain them. First, a hypothesis, a provisional explanation of phenomenon, is developed.

But before hypothesis can be accepted, it must be tested by means of data collection and analysis. Indeed, the testing of hypotheses with the possibility of proving them false in the very basis of the scientific method.

Scientific testing of hypothesis may take several years and may involve researchers who were not involved with the original work. In subsequent studies, other investigators may attempts to obtain the original results, but that may no happen.

If a hypothesis cannot be falsified, it is accepted as a theory. There is a popular misconception that theories are nothing more than hunches or unfounded beliefs.

But in scientific terms, a theory is much more that mere speculation because it has been repeatedly tested and scientists have not been able to disprove it. As such theories not only help organize current knowledge, but also predict how new facts may fit into established pattern.

Use of the scientific method not only allows for the development and testing of hypotheses, but also permits various types of bias to be addressed and controlled. It is important to realize that bias occurs in all studies.

Sources of bias include how investigator was trained and by whom, what particular questions interest the researcher; what specific skills and talents he or she possesses; what earlier results have been established in this realm of study and by whom; and what sources of data are available and thus what samples can be collected.
Physical Anthropology and the Scientific Method

Classification of science

Classification of science
Science may be classified into the natural and the social sciences.

The natural sciences study phenomena processes as well as objects in nature and provide systematic information about the nonhuman and physical aspect of the natural world.

Biology, physics, chemistry, zoology, geology and astronomy are some of the natural sciences.

The social sciences are involved in the study of society, social relations and human behavior.

The social scientist make use of the method and tools used by the natural scientists in the study of social behavior and social phenomena, and their subjects are human beings who can and do talk back.

Hence, social scientists encounter some ethical problems in studying their subjects, something which is not experienced by the natural scientists.

There are ethical limits to the kinds of experiments that they can perform, like those which may inflict moral or physical harm on the subjects.

This social sciences included economics, political science, psychology, sociology, anthropology, and history.
Classification of science

What is science?

What is science?
A definition of science and of social science in particular, is fundamental to the understanding of sociology and anthropology as social sciences.

Science is the study of a various phenomena and things in the world.

It is a body of systematized knowledge that shows the operation of general laws.

It makes used of observation, experimentation, analysis, making generalizations, and verifications.

A feature of scientific study is empiricism, which means that generalization is made on the basis of evidence that can be verified though our senses.

The main goals of science are to describe particular things or events in detail and to set up hypothesis and test them.

By these, one is able to test various phenomenal.

Knowledge is arrived at through rigorous and disciplined collection of facts and a logical explanation of them.

Science can be viewed as a way of life when one imbibes the knowledge, skills and attitudes necessary in scientific investigation.
What is science?