Comprehension

The difficulties historians face in establishing cause-and-effect relations in the history of human societies are broadly similar to the difficulties facing astronomers, climatologists, ecologists, evolutionary biologists, geologists, and palaeontologists. To varying degrees each of these fields is plagued by:

  • The impossibility of performing replicated, controlled experimental interventions.
  • The complexity arising from enormous numbers of variables.
  • The resulting uniqueness of each system.
  • The consequent impossibility of formulating universal laws.
  • The difficulties of predicting emergent properties and future behaviour.

Prediction in history, as in other historical sciences, is most feasible on large spatial scales and over long times, when the unique features of millions of small-scale brief events become averaged out. Just as one could predict the sex ratio of the next \( 1,000 \) newborns but not the sexes of one's own two children, the historian can recognize factors that made inevitable the broad outcome of the collision between American and Eurasian societies after \( 13,000 \) years of separate developments, but not the outcome of the 1960 U.S. presidential election. The details of which candidate said what during a single televised debate in October 1960 could have given the electoral victory to Nixon instead of to Kennedy, but no details of who said what could have blocked the European conquest of Native Americans.

How can students of human history profit from the experience of scientists in other historical sciences? A methodology that has proved useful involves the comparative method and so-called natural experiments. While neither astronomers studying galaxy formation nor human historians can manipulate their systems in controlled laboratory experiments, they both can take advantage of natural experiments, by comparing systems differing in the presence or absence (or in the strong or weak effect) of some putative causative factor.

For example, epidemiologists, forbidden to feed large amounts of salt to people experimentally, have still been able to identify effects of high salt intake by comparing groups of humans who already differ greatly in their salt intake. Similarly, cultural anthropologists, unable to provide human groups experimentally with varying resource abundances for many centuries, study long-term effects of resource abundance on human societies by comparing recent Polynesian populations living on islands differing naturally in resource abundance.

The student of human history can draw on many more natural experiments than just comparisons among the five inhabited continents. Comparisons can also utilize large islands that have developed complex societies in a considerable degree of isolation (such as Japan, Madagascar, Native American Hispaniola, New Guinea, Hawaii, and many others), as well as societies on hundreds of smaller islands and regional societies within each of the continents.

Natural experiments in any field, whether in ecology or human history, are inherently open to potential methodological criticisms. Those include confounding effects of natural variation in additional variables besides the one of interest, as well as problems in inferring chains of causation from observed correlations between variables. Such methodological problems have been discussed in great detail for some of the historical sciences. In particular, epidemiology—the science of drawing inferences about human diseases by comparing groups of people (often by retrospective historical studies)—has for a long time successfully employed formalized procedures for dealing with problems similar to those facing historians of human societies.

In short, I acknowledge that it is much more difficult to understand human history than to understand problems in fields of science where history is unimportant and where fewer individual variables operate. Nevertheless, successful methodologies for analyzing historical problems have been worked out in several fields. As a result, the histories of dinosaurs, nebulae, and glaciers are generally acknowledged to belong to fields of science rather than to the humanities.

Question: 1

Why do islands with considerable degree of isolation provide valuable insights into human history?

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When a question asks “why,” look for the sentence in the passage that provides reasoning rather than just a fact or observation.
Updated On: Jul 31, 2025
  • Isolated islands may evolve differently and this difference is of interest to us.
  • Isolated islands increase the number of observations available to historians.
  • Isolated islands, differing in their endowments and size may evolve differently and this difference can be attributed to their endowments and size.
  • Isolated islands, differing in their endowments and size, provide a good comparison to large islands such as Eurasia, Africa, Americas and Australia.
  • Isolated islands, in so far as they are inhabited, arouse curiosity about how human beings evolved there.
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The Correct Option is D

Solution and Explanation

In the context of understanding the role of isolated islands in human history, the provided comprehension suggests that these islands are valuable due to their isolated conditions, which allow for natural experiments. Unlike controlled scientific experiments, historians rely on natural experiments by comparing different societies or environments that naturally vary in isolated factors.

Islands, by virtue of their isolation, present unique opportunities to compare the development of societies under differing conditions. The comprehension highlights that islands can develop complex societies in isolation, such as Japan, Madagascar, and others. This isolation, along with varied endowments (resources) and sizes, means that these islands can evolve differently from each other and from larger land masses.

The correct answer from the options provided is:

Isolated islands, differing in their endowments and size, provide a good comparison to large islands such as Eurasia, Africa, Americas and Australia.

Therefore, these isolated islands help historians to understand how human societies develop by providing a natural comparative method against larger continents or other islands. They yield insights into how specific factors like resources and geography influence societal evolution when applied to the conditions of varying isolation.

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Question: 2

According to the author, why is prediction difficult in history?

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Pay close attention to phrases that explain “difficulty” or “limitation” — they often directly answer “why” questions.
Updated On: Jul 31, 2025
  • Historical explanations are usually broad so that no prediction is possible.
  • Historical outcomes depend upon a large number of factors and hence prediction is difficult for each case.
  • Historical sciences, by their very nature, are not interested in a multitude of minor factors, which might be important in a specific historical outcome.
  • Historians are interested in evolution of human history and hence are only interested in long-term predictions.
  • Historical sciences suffer from the inability to conduct controlled experiments and therefore have explanations based on a few long-term factors.
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The Correct Option is B

Solution and Explanation

The difficulty in making predictions in history is primarily because historical outcomes depend upon a large number of factors, making prediction challenging for each case. This complexity arises due to several reasons:

  • Multiplicity of Variables: Similar to other historical sciences, history involves numerous variables that interact in complex ways, which makes establishing direct cause-and-effect relationships difficult.
  • Uniqueness of Each Event: Each historical event is unique in its context and influencing factors, which does not allow for generalized predictions.
  • No Controlled Experiments: Unlike sciences that can conduct controlled experiments to test hypotheses, history relies on natural experiments where observations are made based on existing data without manipulation.
  • Emergent Properties and Unpredictability: The emergent properties from these interactions are difficult to foresee, adding to the unpredictability of future behavior.

The example provided in the text highlights how, while it may be possible to predict broader trends over long periods (like the interaction between American and Eurasian societies over millennia), it's much harder to predict specific, short-term events (like the outcome of the 1960 U.S. presidential election). Essentially, while broad historical outcomes can sometimes be anticipated based on large-scale patterns, the multitude of influencing factors makes precise predictions impractical.

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Question: 3

According to the author, which of the following statements would be true?

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When asked which statement is true according to the author, eliminate options that are too absolute (“any,” “only”) and match against the author’s stated main point.
Updated On: Jul 31, 2025
  • Students of history are missing significant opportunities by not conducting any natural experiments.
  • Complex societies inhabiting large islands provide great opportunities for natural experiments.
  • Students of history are missing significant opportunities by not studying an adequate variety of natural experiments.
  • A unique problem faced by historians is their inability to establish cause and effect relationships.
  • Cultural anthropologists have overcome the problem of confounding variables through natural experiments.
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The Correct Option is C

Solution and Explanation

The author's main point in this passage emphasizes the valuable opportunities offered by natural experiments in studying human history. Similar to other scientific fields, history struggles with issues like the inability to conduct controlled experiments, the complexity of numerous variables, and challenges in predicting outcomes. By employing natural experiments, historians can draw insights from different societal developments under varied conditions, much like scientists in other fields tackle similar issues.

Among the provided options, the statement accurately reflecting the author's perspective is:

Students of history are missing significant opportunities by not studying an adequate variety of natural experiments.

This option aligns with the author's argument that leveraging natural experiments can enhance historical understanding, drawing parallel to methodologies used in other historical sciences.

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