standard historical written records, such as fossils, tools, household items, pictures, structures, ecological changes and genetic variations. Criticism of Big History Critics of Big History, including sociologist Frank Furedi, have deemed the discipline an "anti-humanist turn of history." The Big History narrative has also been challenged for failing to engage with the methodology of the conventional history discipline. According to historian and educator Sam Wineburg of Stanford University, Big History eschews the interpretation of texts in favor of a purely scientific approach, thus becoming "less history and more of a kind of evolutionary biology or quantum physics." Others have pointed out that such criticisms of Big History removing the human element or not following a historical methodology seem to derive from observers who have not sufficiently looked into what Big History actually does, with most courses having one-third or half devoted to humanity, with the concept of increasing complexity giving humanity an important place, and with methods in the natural sciences being innately historical since they also attempt to gather evidence in order to craft a narrative. Another criticism of Big History made by associate professor Ian Hesketh, is that it mixes up science disciplines using holistic views that is very close to mythic or religious approaches, without mentioning this in its narrative. Themes Big History seeks to retell the "human story" in light of scientific advances by such methods as radiocarbon dating, genetic analysis, thermodynamic measurements of "free energy rate density", along with a host of methods employed in archaeology, anthropology, and world history. David Christian of Macquarie University has argued that the recent past is only understandable in terms of the "whole 14-billion-year span of time itself." David Baker of Macquarie University has pointed out that not only do the physical principles of energy flows and complexity connect human history to the very start of the Universe, but the broadest view of human history many also supply the discipline of history with a "unifying theme" in the form of the concept of collective learning. Big History also explores the mix of individual action and social and environmental forces, according to one view. Big History seeks to discover repeating patterns during the 13.8 billion years since the Big Bang and explore the core transdisciplinary theme of increasing complexity as described by Eric Chaisson of Harvard University. Time scales and questions Big History makes comparisons based on different time scales