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How important are material tools in the production or acquisition of knowledge?

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How important are material tools in the production or acquisition of knowledge?

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Hana

This is a marker that describes the types of tools Neanderthals have been found to create and use within their lives. The exhibit mentioned that the types of tools neanderthals used, did not change very much for hundreds of thousands of years, and it highlights the fact that although humans and neanderthals have similarities, we are different because of our tools. Humans had the same technology, like knives and axes, at one point, however, if you compare our progress to that of neanderthals, on the same time scale of hundreds of thousands of years, we adapted and refined our tools enormously. And as our tools improved, so did our quality of life. The link between more sophisticated tools and knowledge is clear, one can simply look at the first agricultural revolution and see how being able to farm food instead of just following it created stability. It was at that point that humans shifted their mindset from solely survival to having time to think about knowledge that benefited people beyond food, shelter and reproduction, like basic medicine and the innovation of things like a written language. Neanderthals were not able to do this, for whatever reason their tools did not evolve and so their knowledge base despite the passage of time, was likely quite limited as they still had basic survival needs to think about.

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Joshua ;)

The most basic reason for why humans seek knowledge is because they want an explanation for the things around them. The question driving the neanderthal search (and exhibit) is who they were. This sculpture answers that because it shows a neanderthal using tools, and the neanderthal seems to possess a certain amount of intelligence. The artist was trying to show that neanderthals weren’t just like us in body, but they were also like us in mind. Other art and knowledge indicates that we were smarter and had a better physical body. This art represents something that scientists are trying to find about neanderthals. “How much were they like us”, “who were they”, and “what happened to them” are questions that scientists are trying to find because it could benefit us in understanding who we are, and who our predecessors were. We don’t know how anything about neanderthals except for what scientists can piece together. Even then, it is still not an accurate answer. Because of this, it is all the more important that we answer these questions about the neanderthals. As such the sculpture represents why we seek knowledge, because it represents an idea that could be true or false (or somewhere in between), and finding this is necessary to furthering our knowledge about neanderthals. Finishing on this ties into the next prompt.

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Taylor

After leaving the exhibit, I still had many unanswered questions about Neanderthals such as: where did they go? How did they communicate? The study of extinct species comes with many limitations as there are some things about the past that are beyond our reach and unknowable largely because humans were not alive at the time. While advanced technology plays a major role discovering new information about the past ,there are still many truths that are unattainable. Furthermore, archaeology is a balance of realism and empiricism. Logic, technology, and research can only go so far; to obtain the whole truth direct observation and experience is required (not available in archaeology). The scull artifact exemplifies this idea; Through the use of technology scientists were able to recognize the blunt force trauma to the head but not the cause of the injury. However, scientists suspect it could be caused by an encounter within or between species. This mystery could be solved as technology improves or it may never be solved. When studying historical events, specifically Neanderthals, it is important to accept the presence of unknowable knowledge.

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What counts as good evidence for a claim?

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What counts as good evidence for a claim?

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Adele

Usually, good evidence for a scientific claim can be quantified or proven using scientific laws, with error typically accounted for using error propagation. I personally believe that if there were multiple pieces of data, then the Denisovan tooth would have been an example of good scientific evidence. This is due to the fact that the origins of the tooth can be proven using DNA testing. However, because it is just one piece of data, it cannot be used to support the scientific claim. In general, a scientific claim should rely on several pieces of evidence as proof not only to reduce the possibility of errors, but also so that we can get a clearer and fuller understanding of the claim. An example is how because we only have Denisovan teeth as evidence, we only have proof of their existence and the time period they lived in, but not much else. In fact, there is not even enough evidence to make a justified assumption of what they may have looked like. Thus, our understanding of Denisovans is limited by our lack of evidence.

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How important are material tools in the production or acquisition of knowledge? 

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How important are material tools in the production or acquisition of knowledge? 

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Samuel Michael

Tools are very important for the production of knowledge as they allow us to closer investigate samples of evidence to derive more knowledge out of them. The example in the picture is a microscope that was used to investigate things and small samples that were collected from neanderthal sites in France. Although these tools are essential to the production of knowledge, it is also, if not more important for the acquisition of knowledge. For example, when scientists travel to France in order to investigate neanderthal sites, they initiate excavations and these require many tools to uncover things with care as to not damage them and hinder the acquisition of knowledge. They used things such as sifters, brushes and about 3 different types of shovels in order to properly uncover the neanderthal’s tools. When these tools are used to carefully excavate things, the artifacts remain in better condition and the microscope can be used to look at the tools of the neanderthals in detail. The little patterns on the tools that are invisible to the eye can be used to determine the frequency of strikes, the intensity of the strikes and the hardness of the rock used to fashion the tool. Therefore tools and technology are a central aspect of scientific discovery and acquisition of knowledge because they can then further an investigation on a certain issue as our human senses are limited allowing for tools to help us see things that we couldn’t see before.