POLS pt 1

• Elders


  • Esteemed for their knowledge
  • Knowledgeable to perform special roles
• Storyteller


  Tells stories in a memorable, engaging way, performs an important teaching function in the life of a tribe; for stories, myths, and legends are how experiences of the tribe, especially of catastrophic events, are recorded and stored
• Hunter


  • Knowledge of wildlife
  • Able to read the slightest of signs
  • Able to create tools and weapons
  • Teach the knowledge of the environment without words
• Gatherer


  • Knowledge of fruits, animals, and herbs and their uses
• Farmer


  • Knowledge of the seasons and the signs of the wind and sky
• Indigenous Knowledge, Systems, and Practices

  • Myths, legends, and folklore
  • Traditional legends passed on via traditional means to many generations
  • Product of careful & methodologically sound observations of the natural world
  • Tested & re-tested for thousands of years in the most rigorous real-life laboratories for survival and well-being
  • Affects art, oral literature, all aspects of life (geography & climate knowledge that allow them to "read" signs from nature—the wind, animal behavior, and the appearance of indicator plants' leaves and flowers—to predict future environmental conditions as accurately as any barometer or weather gauge)
  • Allowed them to create many inventions and technologies that relate to domestication of food, storage, and preparation; herbal-based medicines; forms of clothing and transportation; astronomy; sustainable agricultural and industrial practices, etc.
• Biocultural knowledge


  • The intimate knowledge of the interplay among elements in the local living systems give rise to many applications which have been validated by indigenous knowledge systems as well as modern scientific methods
  • Knowledge that is rooted both in the natural environment and what is readily available& grounded on the culture—values and norms—of the people who hold it
• ATTRIBUTES OF LIFE


  • Homeostasis - ability to maintain balance
  • Responsiveness
  • Energy utilization and transformation energy
  • Growth
  • Evolution
  • Reproduction
• Priestly class


  • Human connection to the gods
  • Sole interpreters of the gods' desires
  • Had access to exclusive info and were the only ones authorized to interpret it
  • Controlled political power & surplus production
• Storyteller (in oral cultures)

  Keeper of knowledge
• Knowledge storage and transmission in literature cultures

  • Clay tablets (Sumerians)
  • Papyrus scrolls (Egyptians)
  • Bamboo, bone or wood (early East Asians)
  • Animal hide (Mayans)
  • Wax tablets (Romans)
  • Parchment (medieval Europe)
  • Paper (Chinese empire and copies of the Qur'an)
• Literacy


  • Allowed for the expansion of collective knowledge beyond the Storytellers' collective memories
  • Allowed for the development of more complicated trains of logic, of more abstraction and thus analytical knowledge, reflection, and introspection, which were very difficult to keep track of in story, song, or art
• Sumerian Knowledge of Biology (4500 – 1750 BCE)

  • Kept in clay tablets; written in cuneiform
  • Recorded medical lore (treatment, use of herbs and animal material as materia medica, dentistry, endocrinology, histology, health, and sanitation, among many other subjects)
• Sumerian belief system


  • Both empirical observation and magical thinking, particularly in regards to disease treatment
  • Diseases were sometimes believed to be caused by demon possession, and curing the illness involved sacrificing animals to transfer the demon from the afflicted person to the sacrificial lamb as a gesture of compassion
• Historians of science argue that despite seeming primitive, these early attempts at explanation can be seen as a form of early science. In the absence of a scientific framework, ancient civilizations sought to understand the universe through various means, often attributing phenomena to demons or other supernatural entities. This demon hypothesis, though outdated, represented an early attempt to explain the transmission of illness.
• Ancient Greek philosophers


  • Some of the first people to think deeply about science
  • Their ideas spread over many centuries; lectures were written and translated by different groups of people
• "What is man?" & "what is the world?"


  Questions ancient Greek philosophers explored
• Greek philosophers weren't always connected to religious leaders but were often close to political leaders instead
• Greek philosophers' writings


  • Explain their observations, hypotheses, and conclusions about the world and Man's place in it
  • Show in detail the methods by which they obtained these insights, exposing their ontology and epistemology
• Types of people in the field of studying living things

  • Specialist: focused on 1 subject; has a lot of experience and expertise in a specific area of study
  • Generalist: knows a little bit about many different areas of study; doesn't specialize in one thing but has a broader understanding across various subjects
• Aristotle


  • Most influential Greek thinker
  • Born at the end of Greek era (324-322 BC)
  • Student of Plato & teacher of Alexander the Great
  • His studies were the backbone of philosophical studies from Greek era to European Renaissance
  • First biologist in the Western tradition
  • Both a specialist and generalist
• Aristotle's idea of "species"

  A group of animals or plants that can have babies together, and those babies can also have babies; he thought that once a species existed, it never changed, and it had always been the same
• Later on, Christian thinkers tried to mix Aristotle's ideas with the Bible, believing that God created each species separately and arranged them in a hierarchy, like a ladder, with the simplest things at the bottom and more complex things at the top
• Medieval Europe society


  • Feudal & hierarchical
  • Kings and the church had a lot of power
  • Most people were farmers, and only a small group of educated individuals, like monks, knew how to read and write
  • The church controlled what people were allowed to know and believe, interpreting religious texts and deciding what knowledge was acceptable; people who challenged the church's ideas were punished
• Practical skills like metalworking, farming, and engineering continued to develop outside of the church's control, especially after the fall of the Roman Empire
• Islamic scientists and mathematicians

  • Questioned ancient Greek knowledge and made improvements based on real-life observations
  • Tweaked Aristotle's ideas to fit new evidence, created Algebra and Trigonometry from scratch, and even upgraded the Indian numeral system to include zero, which is a crucial part of our number system today
• Meanwhile, in Europe...

  • Renewed interest in learning
  • Establishment of universities (people could study different subjects outside of religious institutions)
  • Mostly catered to wealthy men
  • Made people start questioning traditional authority, like the church; new scholars believed that instead of just relying on prayers and good deeds, humans could improve society through logical and rational thinking