YEARS 1997 & 1996 PAST EXAM PAPER FOR COMPUTING FOR SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGISTS MODULE

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:
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?'

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?

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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:
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.

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.

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