Posted: May 08, 2015 9:37 pm
Thomas Eshuis wrote:MS2 wrote:Thomas Eshuis wrote:MS2 wrote:
It's interesting how you phrase 1. To my mind, evidence doesn't speak for itself. It has to be interpreted. Interpretation suffers the problem of subjectivity. I gave the example earlier of an archaeologist having to decide a pot fits a particular style. Do you not think this is an issue?
Scientists look to overcome subjectivity by repeating experiments, but historians can't do that.
Like Clive pointed out, science =/= repeating experiments.
Clive did claim that, but I'm not sure he is right.
But he is.MS2 wrote: My understanding is that science consists in the formulation of hypotheses which can be tested by repeatable experiment. uch experiments can include things like surveys in the soft sciences. History though, involves hypotheses about things that took place long ago, where surveys aren't possible.
That's an asburdly specific definition of science.
'Absurdly' - really? You couldn' t just say something like 'in my opinion more specific than is appropriate'? I was hoping to have a friendly discussion but obviously you prefer a different approach. So I'm not going to respond any further to the rest of your post, other than to say if I'm being absurdly specific perhaps wiki is also when it discusses the scientific method (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method):
'Although procedures vary from one field of inquiry to another, identifiable features are frequently shared in common between them. The overall process of the scientific method involves making conjectures (hypotheses), deriving predictions from them as logical consequences, and then carrying out experiments based on those predictions. An hypothesis is a conjecture, based on knowledge obtained while formulating the question. The hypothesis might be very specific or it might be broad. Scientists then test hypotheses by conducting experiments. Under modern interpretations, a scientific hypothesis must be falsifiable, implying that it is possible to identify a possible outcome of an experiment that conflicts with predictions deduced from the hypothesis; otherwise, the hypothesis cannot be meaningfully tested.'