Clément Renaud

What relevance does the subject of history hold in the current world led by science and technology?


History is about memory, which has 3 main forms :

  • biological  : inherited from your ancestors and stored into DNA.
  • sensitive : made of experiences from your own life which is stored in your organs (brain, nerves, etc.)
  • social : composite of human experiences from the past stored in technological objects (hammer, books, computers, etc.)

Science is investigating and documenting the formation of those memories, while technology eventually provide knowledge and know-how transfer to a larger population. Technology is just an enclosed form of history - a laser cutter is an advanced biface silex after all. Challenges face by humans everyday are just repetitions because we all die without passing on much to others.

To answer your question, history still relevant because it is the sum of all existing human and natural processes.

This text was originally published in quora.