Question

we are doing this debate. i am on the history team. why is history more important than math, art (lit included), social sciences, natural sciences. and what are those subjects' flaws

Answer 1

My favorite example is of the small child who touches a hot stove and learns the real meaning of "hot." This experience teaches him a lesson that he's unlikely to repeat.

When we learn from history, we can avoid repeating past painful experiences.

Think of the wars mankind could have avoided if he'd learned from history.

Answer 2

Here's what one man includes on his website and puts under his signature:

<i>Those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it. But they have no idea they're in a re-run.</i>

That's a slight paraphrase of the original statement, and there are some others that are pretty good, too:

George Santayana:
Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

George Bernard Shaw:
We learn from history that we learn nothing from history.

George Wilhelm Hegel:
What experience and history teach is this -- that people and governments never have learned anything from history, or acted on principles.

(From (Broken Link Removed) )