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Is the historical method a scientific method? When I was a child in grade school, I learned that "The Scientific Method" had the following steps: Observe a phenomenon: find things by curious ex...
#2: Post edited
by
Conrado
·
2024-03-11T15:38:08Z (8 months ago)
- ### Is the [historical method](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_method) a scientific method?
- When I was a child in grade school, I learned that "The Scientific Method" had the following steps:
- * **Observe** a phenomenon: find things by curious exploration.
- * **Research** what you have seen: ask if someone else has explained it.
- * **Hypothesize** about it: imagine an explanation for the phenomenon or experience. Formalize this hypothesis.
- * **Experiment** to confirm or reject your hypothesis: design a reproducible test to confirm or disprove your theory. Control all possible variables; confuse only one thing at a time. (I later learned that falsification is an important issue in [demarcation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demarcation_problem).)
- * **Record** your method and results, and analyze the data from the experiment.
- * **Publish** or share your results for others to critique and/or use.
- The way that I learned it, the reproducible experiment was at the very heart of this method, and so science is constrained to what can be subjected to reproducible experiments, although the various steps can be subject to finer points.
- Now I understand that there are scientific _methods_ (plural), and that the demarcation problem is real. But historical sources such as the beginnings of great civilizations like the Mayas or the Egyptians give accounts about which I cannot imagine reproducible experiments, since there is no identifiable trace of many of their protagonists.
- Is there a consensus as to whether historical narratives are empirically falsifiable?
- From [wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_method):
- > Though historians agree in very general and basic principles, in practice "specific canons of historical proof are neither widely observed nor generally agreed upon" among professional historians.[1] Some scholars of history have observed that there are no particular standards for historical fields such as religion, art, science, democracy, and social justice as these are by their nature 'essentially contested' fields, such that they require diverse tools particular to each field beforehand in order to interpret topics from those fields.
- And historians seem to view themselves as craftsmen, taking satisfaction in the result of their work rather than the theory of their method.
- But do scientists view historians as scientists?
- ### Is the [historical method](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_method) a scientific method?
- When I was a child in grade school, I learned that "The Scientific Method" had the following steps:
- * **Observe** a phenomenon: find things by curious exploration.
- * **Research** what you have seen: ask if someone else has explained it.
- * **Hypothesize** about it: imagine an explanation for the phenomenon or experience. Formalize this hypothesis.
- * **Experiment** to confirm or reject your hypothesis: design a reproducible test to confirm or disprove your theory. Control all possible variables; confuse only one thing at a time. (I later learned that falsification is an important issue in [demarcation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demarcation_problem).)
- * **Record** your method and results, and analyze the data from the experiment.
- * **Publish** or share your results for others to critique and/or use.
- The way that I learned it, the reproducible experiment was at the very heart of this method, and so science is constrained to what can be subjected to reproducible experiments, although the various steps can be subject to finer points.
- Now I understand that there are scientific _methods_ (plural), and that the demarcation problem is real. But historical sources such as the beginnings of great civilizations like the Mayas or the Egyptians give accounts about which I cannot imagine reproducible experiments, since there is no identifiable trace of many of their protagonists.
- Is there a consensus as to whether historical narratives are empirically falsifiable?
- From [wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_method):
- > Though historians agree in very general and basic principles, in practice "specific canons of historical proof are neither widely observed nor generally agreed upon" among professional historians.[1] Some scholars of history have observed that there are no particular standards for historical fields such as religion, art, science, democracy, and social justice as these are by their nature 'essentially contested' fields, such that they require diverse tools particular to each field beforehand in order to interpret topics from those fields.
- Historians resort to **source criticism** rather than reproducible experiments.
- And historians seem to view themselves as craftsmen, taking satisfaction in the result of their work rather than the theory of their method.
- But do scientists view historians as scientists?
#1: Initial revision
by
Conrado
·
2024-03-11T15:35:46Z (8 months ago)
Is the historical method a scientific method?
### Is the [historical method](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_method) a scientific method? When I was a child in grade school, I learned that "The Scientific Method" had the following steps: * **Observe** a phenomenon: find things by curious exploration. * **Research** what you have seen: ask if someone else has explained it. * **Hypothesize** about it: imagine an explanation for the phenomenon or experience. Formalize this hypothesis. * **Experiment** to confirm or reject your hypothesis: design a reproducible test to confirm or disprove your theory. Control all possible variables; confuse only one thing at a time. (I later learned that falsification is an important issue in [demarcation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demarcation_problem).) * **Record** your method and results, and analyze the data from the experiment. * **Publish** or share your results for others to critique and/or use. The way that I learned it, the reproducible experiment was at the very heart of this method, and so science is constrained to what can be subjected to reproducible experiments, although the various steps can be subject to finer points. Now I understand that there are scientific _methods_ (plural), and that the demarcation problem is real. But historical sources such as the beginnings of great civilizations like the Mayas or the Egyptians give accounts about which I cannot imagine reproducible experiments, since there is no identifiable trace of many of their protagonists. Is there a consensus as to whether historical narratives are empirically falsifiable? From [wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_method): > Though historians agree in very general and basic principles, in practice "specific canons of historical proof are neither widely observed nor generally agreed upon" among professional historians.[1] Some scholars of history have observed that there are no particular standards for historical fields such as religion, art, science, democracy, and social justice as these are by their nature 'essentially contested' fields, such that they require diverse tools particular to each field beforehand in order to interpret topics from those fields. And historians seem to view themselves as craftsmen, taking satisfaction in the result of their work rather than the theory of their method. But do scientists view historians as scientists?