STUDY GUIDE 1

HONR 210 - Medicine:  East Meets West

For the first examination, you should be able to:

  1. Describe the contributions of the following people to our understanding of the "scientifc method", how science progresses, and how the process of science differs from other ways of knowing:
    • Bacon
    • Descarte
    • Popper
    • Kuhn
  2. Describe and give examples of deductive and inductive reasoning, and explain their relative advantages and disadvantages
  3. Describe the general "Scientific Method" and the difference between hypotheses, laws, and theories
  4. Briefly describe how our understanding of the "Western" concepts of force and motion changed from the time of the ancient Greeks through the present.
  5. Briefly describe the ideas of the following people towards our understanding of gravitational force and motion:
    • Aristotle
    • Aquinas
    • Copernicus
    • Kepler
    • Newton
    • Einstein
  6. Briefly describe  the ideas of the following people or concepts with respect to the nature of matter and its changes:
    • Democritus
    • 4 Element Theory (Empedocles, Aristotle)
    • Phlogiston Theory
  7. Compare and contrast the Four Element Theory and Four Humor Theory and why these theories were so hard to dislodge
  8. Explain the philosophies and contributions of the following people in Chinese history and how they affected the development of science in China:
    • Lao-tzu - Taoism
    • Buddha - Buddhism
    • Confucius (K'ung-fu-tzu)- Confucianism
    • Mencius (Meng-tzu) - Confucianism
    • Zhu Xi (Chu Hsi) (1130-1200) - Neoconfucianism, ideas of Li and Chi (Qi)
  9. Draw a timeline from 1500 BCE to 2000 ACE and indicate the approximate dates for the work of the people listed above. 
  10. Describe the 5 Element (Phase Theory) and Symbolic correlations and how they were used.   Explain and draw a diagram showing the relationships among the 5 Elements that account for changes in the 5 elements. How did early Chinese views differ from the 4 Element theory of the Greeks?
  11. Briefly explain Yin/Yang theory.  How was it used in in the trigrams and hexagrams of I Ching. How were the hexagrams described in I Ching used?
  12. To what extent did 5 Element (Phase) Theory and Yin/Yang Theory hinder the development of science in China?
  13. Explain the role of magical principles and associative (or analogical thinking) in the development of Chinese beliefs about nature.
  14. Give example of how Western science developed analogical ideas in the development of science. How did these Western uses of analogy differ from Chinese attempts.
  15. Explain how the concept of law (both legal and natural) developed differently in China and the West, and how these differences affected the different developments of science.