As a universal language anyone should be able to meet a random person and explain a calculus question numerically without a problem except for terms that are not numerical values. Occasionally, my mom helps me with my math homework and sometimes she has difficulty explaining a concept to me because she doesn’t know the term in English and I don’t know what she wants to say in Polish but that doesn’t mean that her knowledge on the math problem in wrong. In fact, once I have learned the concept from my mom we have the same knowledge on that concept even though our culture may be different. Language is a cultural trait and limits one’s ability to chare a mathematical idea, but since numbers are the same universally, we can overcome that barrier and get our point across because math problems have only one solution and with the common language of numbers you can see the procedure. Sometimes there can be a cultural difference that affects one’s knowledge of a math. Most of the world uses the metric system but in the USA, the imperial system is used. The American cultural choice to use the imperial system affects their communication of measurement with other mathematicians who use the metric system. This changes the way of thinking about measurement but this doesn’t change the mathematical knowledge between the two cultures. If two chefs were making a cake, the American chef would need 4.41 pounds of flour and the Canadian chef would need two kilograms of flour; in the end the same amount of flour is used and therefore the knowledge on quantity of flour in a cake is the same.
Science has been considered adjacent to mathematics as an Area of Knowledge, but there are so many subtopics to science that must be considered that one cannot generally talk about the degree of dependence of culture on science. With physics, culture has been known to play a major role in the type and amount of knowledge that the general public was allowed to know and if anyone tried to cross the line they would be discredited which resulted in the loss of knowledge for centuries. Galileo discovered that the Earth revolved around the Sun which interfered with the cultural mindset that humans were the centre of the universe. To prevent this conflict, the Church sentenced Galileo to permanent house arrest; to stop him from publishing his knowledge and affecting the culture. This demonstrates how science was dependent on culture to thrive. Religion, which is a cultural trait, was able to delay knowledge about the Earth’s movement for so many centuries that it demonstrates how culture can censor a discovery’s entry into the world which then limits and changes the knowledge of science. In contrast to mathematics, science has a higher dependency rate on culture than math, even though they are considered adjacent areas of knowledge. With math, a discovery is usually a formula that is very hard to disagree with and therefore the knowledge has little cultural barrier to break through and this allows knowledge to be spread more easily. With science there is a lot more to break through to teach knowledge. A person or group of people can choose to deny a scientific discovery because of their culture and that knowledge is lost. This is also true with other strands of science such as biology. In India, there is currently an overpopulation crisis and to help control birth rates, scientists from around the world have gone to India to teach females about their reproductive system as a way to allow women to have a choice about having children. Also, contraceptives were introduced to women but because of their lack of presence in the culture previously and the culture’s demand for large families to support the parents; women are refraining from using them. The knowledge on how to control birth rate is available India and many women are aware of the information but they choose to ignore it and bottle up the knowledge because of the culture. For the scientific knowledge of reproduction to blossom the culture must allow for it and that is why science is so dependent on culture.
To evaluate culture we tend to observe cultural traits like the cuisine, the music, the media and style of the visual art and the literature. When we look at the arts, it is a broad area that can be broken into literature, visual art, music and many other disciplines. In a Eurocentric point of view there is an overlap between some cultural traits and disciplines of language which suggest that culture is dependent on language. Culture can be seen as a traditional mindset/behavior of people but also one can explore modern culture and the current mindset that shapes culture. Literature can be seen as a traditional cultural trait, since a culture usually has a general style or topic area that is explored, or another influence to modern culture. For example, newspapers publish only that which is needed to be shared. Journalists select the information that is given to the public and that shapes the knowledge of the society. With music, young teenagers are changing their lifestyles to follow the musical pop culture. In the seventies, during the disco period people were dressing in platform shoes, and bell-bottoms to fit the disco music style and match their favourite celebrities. That was considered the popular culture at the time and it was influenced by music, a discipline of the arts. Right now, this is little knowledge impact on society but several decades down the road historians and future generations will be about to look at the culture and have a sense of the style at the time and that will help provide knowledge about human trends and pattern. The arts play a major role in shaping culture and that can influence the type of knowledge we want to accept. Recently, the earthquake in Haiti has influenced many artists to sing songs for relief to Haitians. Without this form of art the donations would not be as massive and the knowledge about the situation in Haiti may not have spread as quickly.
Each area of knowledge is faced by a different way and degree of cultural dependence. The degree of the influence is different in diverse areas of knowledge but the way that culture is able to contribute to areas of knowledge tend to be similar. In the case of science, math and the arts, knowledge is driven by necessity, beliefs, practices, curiosity, inclination and affinity which can all be considered cultural traits. As discussed earlier, math has little dependence on culture but traits like necessity and curiosity motivate the farther growth for knowledge in this subject. Knowledge in mathematics and other areas of knowledge are thus unarguably dependent on culture for their improvement.
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