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In science we have the scientific method which we can use to ascertain truths about the world. It's the bedrock of all science. Without the controlled experiment we'd be swimming in a muddle of hypotheses, theories and explanations with no good way to tell which ones are true. Do we have anything like that for history? If we have multiple explanations or hypotheses about events in the past, how do we tell which ones are are better? We have an intuitive sense that some explanations of historical events are better than others. But what is it that makes one explanation better than another? Has this ever been formalized? Can the study of history be made rigorous? It seems that the ideological lens through which one views the world plays a big role. Is there a way to remove it from the equation?

In science we have the scientific method which we can use to ascertain truths about the world. It's the bedrock of all science. Without the controlled experiment we'd be swimming in a muddle of hypotheses, theories and explanations with no good way to tell which ones are true. Do we have anything like that for history? If we have multiple explanations or hypotheses about events in the past, how do we tell which ones are are better? We have an intuitive sense that some explanations of historical events are better than others. But what is it that makes one explanation better than another? Has this ever been formalized? Can the study of history be made rigorous? It seems that the ideological lens through which one views the world plays a big role. Is there a way to remove it from the equation?

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[–] • 4 pts

To some degree, yes. I do a lot of history work in my community for a volunteer magazine I help publish.

Archaelogical evidence and human generated records (legal documents, journal entries, oral history, ptimary and secondary sources) all help to paint a picture of the past.

A few years ago, I used old newspaper articles (primary source) to correct a myth in my town. There was a legend in my town that the Bonnie and Clyde gang robbed the old bank. However, the only evidence of a bank robbery occured 10 years after Bonnie and Clyde were committing their crimes. The news stories also stated the robbers used dynamote to.blow a hole in the building and to this day you tell that some of the bricks are different in this one spot in the building.

However, a bunch of stories got all mixed up because the gang was active locally and robbed a bank in a neighboring town and took their hostages to my town. But there was no evidence that they robbed the bank.in this town.

Certainly, they could have robbed it and there was simply no record of it. However, I doubt that it wouldn't have received coverage in this area.

Anyways, this is my tale of doing history work in my local area.