COMPUTING FOR SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGISTS EXAM QUESTIONS FROM MONDAY 23RD JUNE 1996
There are TEN questions. Candidates should answer QUESTION 1 and THREE
additional questions. You are encouraged to introduce any outside material
you wish into the answers, or expand the scope of the questions. You
should make clear the relevance of doing so.
1. Discuss ONE of the following:
2. Are computers different from other human artefacts?
3. How do computers compare to cameras, tape recorders or notebooks in
anthropological fieldwork?
4. Does writing change the way you think?
5. Is the ability of computers to play chess significant in the
understanding of human intelligence?
6. Is cognition particularly human?
7. Do psychologists and anthropologists attempt to explain the same thing?
8. How should cross-cultural comparison best be undertaken?
9. 'Humans make sense and make machines.' How have language and tools
influenced human development?
10. Does the example of 'machine intelligence' help an anthropological
understanding of people?
COMPUTING FOR SOCIAL
ANTHROPOLOGISTS EXAM QUESTIONS FROM WEDNESDAY 19TH JUNE
1996
There are TEN questions. Candidates should answer QUESTION 1 and THREE
additional questions. You are encouraged to introduce any outside material
you wish into the answers, or expand the scope of the questions. You
should make clear the relevance of doing so.
1. Discuss ONE of the following:
2. How can computers help anthropological research? How can they hinder?
3. How could computers be useful if there was no writing system?
4. What problems must be overcome if large scale social organisation is
to be possible without writing?
5. How may it be argued that printing rather than writing has changed
the world? What are the implications of your argument for computer
networks like the World Wide Web?
6. Can expert systems illuminate anthropologists' conception of
knowledge?
7. Compare the conceptions of cross-cultural cognition of early and
contemporary anthropologists.
8. "Do Machines make history?" (Heilboner). Make three arguments for and
against the proposition.
9. Are computers different from other human artefacts?
10. Discuss the social effects of technological innovation with examples.
EITHER
a. 'Information is as necessary to human life as air or water.'
OR
b. 'Social systems are essentially information systems'.
OR
c. 'Is knowledge simply information, or something more?'
EITHER
a. People use pictures and words convey information. How does the
choice of medium affect the message?
OR
b. 'Social development is closely linked to the development of
knowledge'.
OR
c. 'Knowledge', 'wisdom' and 'information'. Compare and contrast.