Oliver Cromwell
In TOK class, we were looking at the study of History. In particular, we talked about the Statue of Liberty and the history behind the Statue has changed due to Trump being president. History is defined as “the branch of knowledge that deals with past events; the formal records or study of past events, especially human affairs,” (Cambridge English Dictionary). I find the erection of statues very fascinating because how does one have the ability to change the history of the statue or remove it after many years of the statue being there. For this blog post, I will be discussing the erection of Oliver Cromwell Statue. Statues symbolize many things within our society. Besides power, statues, and significance, status solidifies the values between individuals by strengthening both collective and national identities.
The Oliver Cromwell statues is located outside the House of Commons of the United Kingdom in Westminster, London. The Cromwell statue was designed by Hamo Thornycroft in 1899. Hamo Thornycroft was an English Sculptor famous for some of the most important statues in London. Thornycroft was one of the leading exponents of the New Sculpture, a movement in British sculpture reacting against the neo-classicism of mid-Victorian sculpture. Before the Cromwell Statue was erected the Cromwell statue was believed to be a source of controversy, “the Irish Nationalists voted against its installation because of the ghastly activities of Cromwell’s troops on innocent folk during the invasion of Ireland in AD 1649.” The removal of the statue had a huge discussion since “the iconoclasm of the English civil wars was neither ordered or carried out by Cromwell,” said Mr. Goldsmith. Many of the royalists thought that Oliver Cromwell was a traitor for overthrowing the monarchy. The Irish believed that Cromwell was a murder.
Oliver Cromwell was a fanatical puritan who enforced the abolition of Christmas. Cromwell is considered to be one of the most significant figures in British History, therefore he deserves to be remembered even if it is negative or positive. Many historians say that Cromwell should be commemorated outside the parliament, however the values which both symbolize differently. The parliament is referred to Britons as the beacon of both democracy and equality, however, Cromwell was seen as a controversial figure in Ireland due to his legacy. Oliver Cromwell is considered to be one of the most controversial figures in the history of the British Isles. However, Cromwell was a notable historic figure who deserved the statue outside Westminster. The removal of this statue was outrageous because there are other statues that should have been erected, such as Lord Protector because he upset many however not the Irish. The Cromwell statue shouldn’t have been erected because now a part of history is lost because the future generations won’t understand what’s happening with the statue.
The changing historiography of Cromwell also contributes to his statue’s merit. The fact that controversy surrounding the statue is not a recent issue. The statue was shown in 1899 and received a lot from the house of lords. The whole point of having a statue is not to strengthen a status, however, it is up to the public. I think Cromwell's statue shouldn’t have been erected because he was uniting public opinion.
The Statue of Oliver Cromwell is holding a bible in his left arm. In his right hand, Cromwell is holding a sword. The Cromwell statue was dressed in his military office, without his hat.
Natural Science's Framework
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Scope and Applications: Points to consider
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Natural science is a system of knowledge of the natural world largely based on observation and constructed using reason and imagination.
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The sciences are shared knowledge, often shared by a large grouping geographically spread and largely independent of culture.
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Prediction is often an important feature of scientific knowledge, but understanding is also a prime purpose.
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Natural sciences are interested in producing generalized statements, principles or scientific laws about the natural world.
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Most of these laws are casual: If event A happens then B will happen as a result.
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Concepts and Langauge: Points to consider
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Many of the laws of natural science are stated using the language of mathematics - math is central.
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The language of the sciences is precise in order to eliminate ambiguity which might affect the reasoning process.
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Methodology: Points to consider
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Measurement involves interaction with the world, but this interaction can sometimes change the aspect of the world we are trying to measure.
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Models are important in most areas of the natural world.
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Classification is a central idea in many of the natural sciences.
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Among the methods employed by the natural sciences are hypothesis- deduction and induction - use of reason and sense perception.
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Historical Development: Points to consider
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There have been a number of pivotal shifts of thinking in the development of the natural sciences.
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Links to Personal Knowledge: Points to consider
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The natural sciences give us a view of ourselves as material entities behaving according to universal laws
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There is little space here to see ourselves as rational, free agents with desires and the ability to choose
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Individuals have contributed to scientific progress, often in revolutionary ways
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Use of imagination, intuition, and emotion in the creation of hypotheses
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Natural Science's Blog
Real Life Situation:Moon Landing
Introduction:
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Apollo 11 was the spaceflight that landed the first humans, Neil Armstrong and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin on Earth's moon on July 20, 1969
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On July 21st Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were the first people to walk on the moon and spent a total of 21 hours and 31 minutes on the lunar surface.
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Apollo 11 was the fifth named mission, and the third lunar mission, of NASA’s Apollo program.
Problems of Knowledge:
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How is something we know different from what we believe?
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It is hard to be certain of anything is we look at things closely.
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Some people believe in Relativism: The belief that knowledge, truth, and molarity exist in relation to culture, society, or historical context, and are not absolute.
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Other people believe in Absolutism: the acceptance of or belief in absolute principles in political, philosophical, ethical, or theological matters.
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4 Ways of Knowing:
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Language:
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Language is central to how we gain knowledge of the world but it can have problems in gaining true knowledge.
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Words are often vague (meaning is not fixed)
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Many words are ambiguous (could have different meaning)
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It could be easily be interpreted differently by different people
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Perception:
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Knowledge is gained through 5 senses: Smell, Sight, Taste, Touch, Hearing.
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Empiricism: We learn everything through perception/experience
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Rationalism: Reason instead of experience is central to gaining knowledge
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What we perceive is influenced, some say it is determined by our cultural, social, religious, financial… background
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Reason:
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We are continuously use reasoning to go beyond immediate evidence of our senses giving us knowledge.
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Reason appears to give us indisputable knowledge (unlike problems we can have relying only in our senses)
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Reason is based on using knowing truths to make conclusions
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Rationalism: argues it is most important way of knowing
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Deductive Reasoning: any form of reasoning that moves from the general to the particular
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Inductive Reasoning: any form of reasoning that moves from the particular to the general
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Emotion:
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Are emotions a source of knowledge or an obstacle to knowledge? Or both?
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Although this is a way of knowing, it does not fully relate to this topic, because language, perception and reasoning play a bigger role in this area.
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The only part that slightly relates to emotions is how most Amerians would decide that the moon landing was true, simply because they are Americans and being patriotic, would rather ignore the possibility that everything was faked.
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Evidence:
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Shadows:
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Experiment in studio - evidence - reasoning
No stars: perception
Surface of the moon - perception and reasoning
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They claimed that Nasa falsified the landing for several reasons:
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To win the space Race against Russia: begun because of the Cold War in the late 20th century, the nations tried to defeat the other by achieving first space exploration goals, symbolic of technological and ideological superiority
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Fundings: it falsified the landing in order to ensure that it continued to get funding aid to finance missiles tests and other military activities.
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Vietnam War: the Moon landing would have been a distraction from the war.
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How do we know who is right:
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NASA:
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Several Video and pictures
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Memories: witnesses and testimonies
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Very Specific and precise records of the flights
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Objects: the columbia, the suits used in open space, lunar material recovered, a plaque on order of the President of United States Richard Nixon
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CONSPIRACY THEORISTS:
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No actual proofs to confirm the theory
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As Mythbusters have shown, most of the knowledge claims of the conspiracy theorists are wrong.
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Most of the theorists based on not proven claims and assertions, and on physical and technological impossibilities, or apparent incongruences in the pictures.
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Conclusion:
Overall, we still wouldn't know if the moon landing did occur and many people believe different things dues to their social belief.
