Module Discussion 3-1
Module Discussion
Directions
Read module and complete discussion questions.
Module Overview
Comparing the Four Lenses of the Liberal Arts
As you are working on your discussion assignment this week, keep in mind the purpose of each lens. History gives us the lens to study what life might have been like during different time periods of the past. The humanities lens allows us to explore human culture through the arts. Social science helps us to understand cultures across the world. Through the lens of natural science, we can use a scientific process to evaluate the world around us. Although there are distinct characteristics for each lens, the lenses can, and do, overlap and have some similarities. We will now look in more detail at each lens.
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History Lens
Dates and facts are two of the building blocks of the study of history, but they are not the goal. The resources in this module will help you expand your thinking about what history is and how historians examine and make sense of our past. Historians work with primary sources such as artifacts from an era, letters from people who lived during that time, documents from that time, photographs, and firsthand accounts of people. How they use these materials is strongly informed by secondary sources, such as other history books, journal articles, and theoretical frameworks from other historians and other researchers who might inform historians’ work. For instance, the study of space exploration might include an array of artifacts, including the spacecrafts themselves, recorded interviews with astronauts and astronomers, documents from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, news clippings about the launch of various spacecraft, and video recordings of launches and of astronauts in space and on the moon. A historian would pull these sources together and try to make clear sense of how different events played out and the impact they had on our understanding of space exploration.
The resources in this module explain what historical thinking is, as well as how to think like a historian. For example, a historian might explore the impact of the Soviet Union’s launch of Sputnik, the first human-made satellite, into Earth’s orbit and its impact on the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). NATO is an intergovernmental organization created in large part as a geopolitical counterbalance to the Soviet Union after World War II (Hatzivassiliou, 2020). Scholars in the discipline of history carefully consider how they use different primary and secondary sources. They might use primary sources to show what was going on in the immediate aftermath of an event and secondary sources to help the reader understand the larger context of the events explored.
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Humanities Lens
The humanities broaden perspectives and promote an understanding of multiple experiences, cultures, and values through various media of creative human expression. These may include fine art, dance, photography, language, and philosophy. The humanities also include the various types of storytelling from oral traditions, written texts, films, or even video games. When we think about many (though not all) popular video games, some kind of story sits at the center of it, and people connect with that story, hence their ongoing engagement with the video game.
In the humanities, you might ask how the work (art, book, performance, film, etc.) was made and what cultural aspects it represents. What kinds of reactions does the cultural work generate in yourself or in others? What might create those different reactions? What were the creators trying to convey about themselves, their culture, or the period in which they lived? The latter is an example of how the lenses of humanities and history can overlap. In fact, often, the cultural works of the humanities become primary sources when a historian is using them to study a given time and place.
The humanities also provide the opportunity to reflect on the impact of science (the sciences) on human culture. For space exploration, this comes up a lot in science fiction. Novels such as Jules Vernes’s From the Earth to the Moon (1865), television shows such as Star Trek (in all its different series), and films such as Alien (1979) or The Martian (2015) all engage in different ways of extrapolating the technology of the day and projecting into what might be awaiting us as we explore the universe.
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Professionals in the fields of the humanities often inspire or ask interesting questions through their works that can influence many things in our day-to-day lives. One example is, of course, Star Trek’s tricorder, a fictional device that can do a great many things; it served as some inspiration for smartphones. In one such article, the author delves further into understanding how Star Trek’s popularity served to inspire new considerations about how space travel might happen, not just in the technological aspect but also with regard to social considerations (Alalinarde, 2017).
Social Science Lens
Social science is the study of society and the relationships between people. Social science careers include a wide variety of fields, such as sociology, anthropology, psychology, and more. Studying society, culture, and human relationships leads to an understanding of how people live and how to improve our lives.
This study of human behavior and interaction can sometimes intersect with the humanities lens when different cultures are studied. It can also intersect with other lenses, such as history, where we look to the past to gain an understanding of social relationships. How do we interact? How do we work together? Asking questions similar to these has given us the opportunity to evaluate causes and effects related to people in our society.
It is important for social scientists to look across cultures for answers to our questions. For instance, looking at the development of international space debris policies, scholars notice different discussions within the United States and around the world, across space agencies and governments, about how to anticipate and address growing amounts of human-created debris in Earth’s orbit (Johnson, 2012). Social scientists may explore this topic through asking several different questions, depending on their specific subject. A sociologist might consider the policy development process through the lens of group makeup and ask what impact people of different categories (race, language, gender, or nationality) may have on the process. An economist might consider the financial implications of such guidelines in terms of economic policies and decisions for each country’s space program that need to be considered. A legal scholar might ask how such guidelines might be enforced through legal and policy changes.
Natural Science Lens
Natural science is the study of the physical world and life; it can include biology, chemistry, physics, and astronomy, among others. Natural scientists develop questions and use a specific process of describing, predicting, and observing the natural world. Their work often involves a variety of findings and ideas that drive the STEM (sciences, technology, engineering, mathematics) professions. For many of these professions, mathematics is a foundational tool for calculation and prediction. For instance, the term computer originally referred to people who did massive numbers of calculations to advance science, including early calculations for space exploration. Incidentally, although there is often an assumption that men are associated with math and science, women were overly represented as computers. Natural scientists develop questions and use a specific process of describing, predicting, and observing the natural world.
In one example, natural scientists examined how long-term exposure to the zero-gravity conditions in space impacts normal levels of movement by astronauts upon return to Earth (Mulavara et al., 2010). The question they asked was, How can we effectively assess the level of impact on movement upon return to determine how long it will likely take to return to normal levels of movement? Their process started with observations drawn from previous research and the development of a tool (Functional Mobility Test) that they would use to test subjects. They conducted the test both before and after spaceflights to determine the degree of loss of mobility and the duration of recovery. They used these results and some statistical methods to calculate predictions of the likely average rates to anticipate for all astronauts in the future. The authors then identify two possible ways that the recovery might be enhanced with recommendations about what might be next steps for future research.
The scientific method refers to this process. It is also important to understand how humans are scientists by design. Each of us was born with curiosity. When you were younger, you may have explored the world around you for yourself by digging in the dirt to find the different layers or by watching bubbles float away or clouds pass. You asked questions about why this happened. Scientists continue having that curiosity and are constantly answering why and how.
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Comparing the Four Lenses of Liberal Arts
The liberal arts lenses have a lot of similarities and differences. We will process the information we explored in the previous modules to evaluate the lenses. As you are working on your assignments, keep in mind that history gives us the lens to more clearly understand the different aspects of a given historical time, event, or experience. The humanities lens allows us to explore the human experience through the arts and different forms of expression. Social science helps us understand human relationships within and across cultures across the world. Through the lens of natural science, we can use a scientific process to evaluate the world around us.
Although each lens has distinct characteristics, the lenses can, and do, overlap and have some similarities. One example is that through history we learn how global politics after World War II led to tension between the United States and the Soviet Union, leading to the Cold War and the Space Race. With the natural science lens in mind, we can see that the resources poured into education and the sciences amplified the possibilities for more scientists to test theories and make new discoveries that eventually made human space travel possible. The humanities lens allows us to realize that human space travel has inspired the creation of a great deal of cultural artifacts, including shows such as Star Trek. Through the social science lens, Star Trek, a series of TV shows spanning seven decades, has also shaped people’s ideas and expectations about how we might think not just about aliens from other planets but also humans from different cultures around the world.
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To further clarify, it might be useful to consider how the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities differ in terms of how they explore the world around us. Natural sciences focus largely on things that can be measured and observed and that can be readily reproduced under the same settings. Social sciences explore human behaviors at the individual to societal levels, looking for trends of behaviors and interactions that can be anticipated but not necessarily predicted. The humanities attempt to convey the human experience in many different forms and styles, recognizing that there is no singular condition or medium to convey that. Like the social sciences, the humanities are focused on humans but not necessarily on trying to anticipate or understand behaviors; rather, they are focused on capturing what it is like to be human.
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Discussion Question
In this discussion, you will think about space exploration through the four lenses. After reading the module overview, what are some of the ways that the lenses relate to space exploration? Can you find other examples that have played a role in space exploration?
Create a post, address the following:
How has your view of space exploration changed or expanded after looking at it through the four lenses?
Consider a recent significant breakthrough in space exploration. Discuss the breakthrough by analyzing it with the four lenses.
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