# How can we be for sure about history? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 25, 2014, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-we-be-for-sure-about-history/686924 "2014-04-25T04:14:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![DrFidelius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drfidelius/32/3447_2.png) [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2014, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-we-be-for-sure-about-history/686924/21 "2014-04-25T16:07:51Z")
> [@MarcusF](#): > > Just curious, who is keeping history from us? 'Cos whoever it is is not doing a very good job. A quick search turned up any number of scholarly articles on the annexation of Hawaii and public transport in American cities not to mention the articles in wiki. The poster confuses apathy and indifference with deliberate enemy action. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2014, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-we-be-for-sure-about-history/686924/22 "2014-04-25T16:14:44Z")
> [@sbunny8](#): > > Read Proving History by Richard Carrier PhD > > Long story short, most historians who write history books use feel-good wishy-washy methods to arrive at questionable conclusions about what’s true and what’s false. Hey, it’s good to know there’s another field besides science fiction that’s being judged by its worst examples. :dubious: In the real world, historians (and archaeologists and paleontologists and everybody else in every field that touches on the past) is acutely aware of this problem and spends huge amounts of time attempting to deal with it. In my attempt to teach myself to be a historian (I only minored in it in college, but I did learn some important principles there) I’ve amassed a whole shelf of books on the proper way to do history. I have the one recommended by Little Nemo, _After the Fact: The Art of Historical Detection by James West Davidson and Mark Lytle_ and I recommend it too. Other good works are _The Historian as Detective: Essays on Evidence, edited by Robin Winks_ and _Truth in History by Oscar Handlin_. They all look at written history rather than archaeological history, but the principles are not much different. (I’ve read newer books that address the issue as well, but they don’t happen to be sitting in the next room.) I’m a member of the Archaeological Institute of America, mostly to get their magazine and to get free passes to their touring lecturers. If sbunny8 had ever listened to a talk by a real working archaeologist on how he or she works to be able to draw any conclusions from a site then the phrase “feel-good, wishy-washy methods” would be scrubbed from his mind with a Brillo pad. The OP might also want to look up [Cliometrics](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cliometrics), “the systematic application of economic theory, econometric techniques, and other formal or mathematical methods to the study of history (especially, social and economic history)” which has seen equivalent use in archaeology. Every shred of every shard is now tagged, counted, and systematically analyzed, often to breakthrough results. Oh, and you want to know why there are no trolleys in big cities. IT’S NOT BECAUSE GM SUPPRESSED THEM. It’s because the automobile was a better solution. You know who have made that case over and over and over again? Historians. Do I need to point out that _Who Framed Roger Rabbit?_ is not a documentary? ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2014, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-we-be-for-sure-about-history/686924/23 "2014-04-25T17:10:17Z")
> [@jtur88](#): > > There is a great deal of history that is kept hidden from you, because it is not in the best interests of the powers that be in your country (for example. the USA) for certain facts to be general knowledge. Go and read (Wiki will do) about why there are no trolleys in most big cities, or how Hawaii came to be American territory. For its part, the dastardly US government has hidden what it knows about the annexation of Hawaii on the [State Department Historian’s website](http://history.state.gov/milestones/1866-1898/hawaii). A cunning plot! ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2014, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-we-be-for-sure-about-history/686924/24 "2014-04-25T17:42:13Z")
WWII is pretty much a proven fact :), but I wonder about other facts lost in deep history. Say there was a War of Smith’s Hill in AD375. It wasn’t a big war, and our only info on it comes from a historical text written in 400. We should be able to trust it, but what if the guy transcribing the book in 700 was a real doofus and lost the only copy, and just made up the entire book from scratch, never telling anyone? Who could tell? There probably weren’t a lot of people looking for info on the war, so the fake might never be caught. So here we are in 2014 relying on a fake book, with no way to trace it back to the truth. Do you think there could be whole events that we accept as “true” that are complete fabrications? For some events, it may well be impossible to know. To me, that’s pretty scary. ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2014, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-we-be-for-sure-about-history/686924/25 "2014-04-25T17:50:08Z")
> [@MarcusF](#): > > Just curious, who is keeping history from us? 'Cos whoever it is is not doing a very good job. A quick search turned up any number of scholarly articles on the annexation of Hawaii and public transport in American cities not to mention the articles in wiki. That’s true, but I never said the information did not exist, I said it is hidden like Easter eggs in places where it must be searched out by the few who are motivated to do so. I only allowed that Wiki is an easy and sufficiently reliable to place to find it, not the only one. Public schools and news channels make value judgments abut what shall be overt and covert, in terms of the base of historical knowledge administered in encapsulated form to the masses. I haven’t been in first grade for a long time, but I bet the Pastor Weems version of Washington’s cherry tree is still being taught. Along with throwing a dollar across the Potomac and standing up in a boat. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2014, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-we-be-for-sure-about-history/686924/26 "2014-04-25T18:08:24Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > I don’t even know for sure what happened yesterday! But don’t you know what happens in the next 1000 years? Assuming no Mule, of course. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2014, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-we-be-for-sure-about-history/686924/27 "2014-04-25T19:01:28Z")
> [@jtur88](#): > > I haven’t been in first grade for a long time, but I bet the Pastor Weems version of Washington’s cherry tree is still being taught. Along with throwing a dollar across the Potomac and standing up in a boat. I’ll take that bet. Anybody else? ---
**Author:** ![buddha\_david](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ee7513/32.png) [@buddha\_david](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buddha_david)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2014, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-we-be-for-sure-about-history/686924/28 "2014-04-26T17:11:28Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > Say there was a War of Smith’s Hill in AD375. It wasn’t a big war, and our only info on it comes from a historical text written in 400. We should be able to trust it, but what if the guy transcribing the book in 700 was a real doofus and lost the only copy, and just made up the entire book from scratch, never telling anyone? Who could tell? There probably weren’t a lot of people looking for info on the war, so the fake might never be caught. So here we are in 2014 relying on a fake book, with no way to trace it back to the truth. But doesn’t this beg the question – how important was the War of Smith’s Hill, in the scope of history? Does it really matter if the war took place on Smith’s Hill, or to the north by ten leagues on Miller’s Mound? Does it matter if the skirmish took place in Dec. 375 or Feb. 376, and did the outcome greatly affect the course of history as a whole? Fact is, we may never know all the details regarding events which are shrouded in myth, or lost in the mists of time; and while it’s truly important to learn how we got here, at least we know where we’ve ended up. (In theory, anyway – according to the Hindu religion, all of this is just a dream of the gods…) ---
**Author:** ![Bozuit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/edb3f5/32.png) [@Bozuit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bozuit)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2014, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-we-be-for-sure-about-history/686924/29 "2014-04-26T17:43:58Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > WWII is pretty much a proven fact :), but I wonder about other facts lost in deep history. Say there was a War of Smith’s Hill in AD375. It wasn’t a big war, and our only info on it comes from a historical text written in 400. We should be able to trust it, but what if the guy transcribing the book in 700 was a real doofus and lost the only copy, and just made up the entire book from scratch, never telling anyone? Who could tell? There probably weren’t a lot of people looking for info on the war, so the fake might never be caught. So here we are in 2014 relying on a fake book, with no way to trace it back to the truth. If that were the case, presumably most historians would not be confidently proclaiming that the War of Smith’s Hill happened in 375. They would probably say they think it might have done. One of the key lessons in history was to evaluate the quality of your sources. Was it written by a contemporary, were they likely biased, etc.? > [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > Do you think there could be whole events that we accept as “true” that are complete fabrications? For some events, it may well be impossible to know. To me, that’s pretty scary. Some nutter came up with the [Phantom Time Hypothesis](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantom_time_hypothesis) which says that a few medieval centuries were made up and Charlemagne never existed. ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2014, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-we-be-for-sure-about-history/686924/30 "2014-04-27T03:22:04Z")
In addition to what’s already been said, historians cross-check each other in the same way the adversarial process works in court. How do we know a given court case will have a fair outcome – particularly since humans are fallible? Well, we can’t know in advance, but we can set up a system that takes advantage of the very human tendency to press one’s own interest. So we set up a prosecutor with something to gain from prosecuting and convicting, and a defense attorney with something to gain from defending the defendant, and trust that the stake each has in the system will bring out their best efforts. That doesn’t always happen, but it does work more reliably than systems in which no one’s interest, or only one party’s interest, is at stake (try going to the Department of Motor Vehicles to see what that’s like). History works somewhat similarly, although there’s no formal adversarial system. But if someone is able to show evidence for a novel claim, he or she stands to gain fame and the rewards of publication. Other historians have an interest in assessing the veracity of the novel claim. Both sides present their ideas. You can either read both versions and decide for yourself which seems most credible, or wait for consensus to develop among reputable historians. ---
**Author:** ![sbunny8](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c77e96/32.png) [@sbunny8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sbunny8)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2014, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-we-be-for-sure-about-history/686924/31 "2014-04-27T04:16:01Z")
> [@MarcusF](#): > > Wow! Nice sweeping generalisation about historians and their methods - though I’m not sure what “feel-good wishy-washy methods” are. Must have missed the module on them. Would you like to give us some examples? I was trying to suggest that you go to Richard Carrier’s book for some examples. I am not a historian, don’t even play one on TV. Richard Carrier is a historian. Check out _his_ examples. If I still had the book here on my desk I’d flip it open and quote some of it for you, but I borrowed it from the library and had to give it back after reading it. The point of Baye’s Theorem is that when you have competing explanations it’s not enough to merely ask which one fits the facts, you also need to ask how common (or how rare) such explanations are. Hence the aphorism “When you hear hoof beats, think horses not zebras”. Ideally, this should be quantified with numbers and plugged into a formula to determine the likelihood of one explanation over another. Real scientists use BT all the time, in things like trying to determine whether the results of a drug trial are actually due to the efficacy of the drug or by random chance. What I get from Carrier’s book Proving History is that historians rarely apply BT with actual numbers, but they SHOULD. Instead, historians use words like “perhaps” and “probably” without ever quantifying what those words mean. I look forward to the day when this will change. If anyone reading this is a historian, please don’t take this as a personal attack on your sense of integrity. I’m not suggesting that you are failing in your duties. All I’m saying is that we ought to re-evaluate what those duties are and begin training the next generation of historians to use mathematics in their work. Yeah, I know it sounds strange to say that. I thought so to before I read the book. Now I’m convinced. ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2014, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-we-be-for-sure-about-history/686924/32 "2014-04-27T04:29:35Z")
> [@Gateway](#): > > I forget the quote, but it says something like, “those who have won the war are the ones who can say how things went” or something. “History is written by the winners” George Orwell > **[George Orwell - History is Written By the Winners](http://alexpeak.com/twr/hiwbtw/)** > > Orwell writes with dismay that those who control the present can, to some extent, control knowledge of the past. I’m not sure if he was the first to use this exact phrase, but certainly a notable example of it. And many others had expressed similar thoughts before. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2014, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-we-be-for-sure-about-history/686924/33 "2014-04-27T04:32:49Z")
I’d question how correct Carrier’s application of Baye’s theorem to the field of history is. Carrier is most notable for his claim that Jesus was not a historical figure. I can accept the argument that Jesus was not a divine figure but denying his historical existence seems the less probable alternative by far. Carrier seems to have let his atheism bias his assessment of what’s believable. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2014, 5:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-we-be-for-sure-about-history/686924/34 "2014-04-27T05:07:36Z")
The point is the more independent and diverse accounts we have of an event (that agree) the more likely the event happened as described. If there is physical evidence to corroborate that, then that is added to the “truth” side. But much as the OP asks, there are many events in history that are lies, questionable, or basically unknowable. If the “Battle of Smith Hill” was a total fabrication, then the fact that only one source mentions it means it may not be credible. If it makes no sense in the context of the times (“Why would king Jones attack Smith? They fought together against Miller two years later…”) then the evidence is weighed and event classified as “unlikely”. There is no end of controversy as to the accuracy of historical record and the veracity of claims about history. The entire gospels and epistles were written decades after Jesus’ life. They were then edited over the next centuries to match the church orthodoxy of the time. The original goal was to persuade, not to be accurate. Even the actual existence of Jesus as a historical person is questioned by some. The mention of Jesus by Josephus, a Jewish historian - some feel the references are embellished by later copyists who of course would be monks. Similarly, when did the early natives migrate to America? You will hear claims from 25,000 to 13,000 years ago. Obviously there are no written records, and the significant lack of archeological sites makes it hard to ever know the truth. A few new discoveries may change all that. To list a few more - was Richard III a hunchback? It was felt this description was anti-Richard propaganda by his enemies on the winning side. (A recent find where his corpse was supposed to be buried, now seems to bear out the deformity as truth.) Did Anne Boleyn actually have a sixth finger? Did she actually have sex with her brother? All likely fabrications and lies extracted under torture. Did Henry VIII really suffer from syphilis, or what was the infirmity that bothered him later in life? You can read various accounts and assess what the individuals say and whether this was in a setting that encouraged honesty. Did Shakespeare really write his plays, or was he a front for someone? Did Richard III murder the two princes in the tower? And so on… As you can see, I pick one little era in one little country in Europe (but fortunately one with a lot of sources to cross-reference) and there are no end of controversies. The whole of history is like this. Many of the worst depravities of Roman emperors, for example, are sometimes slander and “getting even” by slighted aristocrats writing their own accounts years later. Some things we’ll never know, because there are no verifiable sources, or they contradict each other. For example - you’ll hear the claim that Mohammed had a wife whom he married when she was 9 years old; however, that’s one interpretation. Depending on which source and which timeline you pick, she could have been as old as 17 when they married. Even in Europe, marriages at 13 and 14 were not uncommon so if the truth lies somewhere in between, it’s not that shocking. (just as, for example, Jerry Lee “Great Balls of Fire” Lewis married his 13-year-old cousin.) It’s something we’ll probably never settle, and the people who want to exploit this one way or the other will choose to believe the source that serves their purpose and assert a “historical fact” that may not be correct. This is another example how “incorrect history” gets made. People repeat the incorrect or unverifiable version that suits them. If you believe an factoid about history is incorrect, then you are welcome to chase down original sources and make your own decisions. Unfortunately, some places in history are very dark, some are so far away the truth is murky, and some things we’ll never know. ---
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2014, 10:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-we-be-for-sure-about-history/686924/35 "2014-04-27T10:23:52Z")
And even history teachers themselves can be clueless. My son recently finished a unit on Helen Keller. I happen to consider myself a Keller historian and I confronted the teacher with things about Keller she knew nothing about. Or teachers know only the “kid friendly” history. Rarely do they know about the sex lives of famous people even though this is important in understanding their character. ---
**Author:** ![MarcusF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/67e7ee/32.png) [@MarcusF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MarcusF)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2014, 10:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-we-be-for-sure-about-history/686924/36 "2014-04-27T10:32:57Z")
> [@jtur88](#): > > That’s true, but I never said the information did not exist, I said it is hidden like Easter eggs in places where it must be searched out by the few who are motivated to do so. I only allowed that Wiki is an easy and sufficiently reliable to place to find it, not the only one. Public schools and news channels make value judgments abut what shall be overt and covert, in terms of the base of historical knowledge administered in encapsulated form to the masses. I haven’t been in first grade for a long time, but I bet the Pastor Weems version of Washington’s cherry tree is still being taught. Along with throwing a dollar across the Potomac and standing up in a boat. Not being American I can’t comment on what is actually taught in American school but of course “schools and news channels make value judgments” about what is taught. “History” is effectively infinite - like Mandelbrot sets the more you zoom in the more detail there is - so there has to be selection of what is taught. Now you may not like that selection - there are areas of the English schools curriculum I am not happy about - but I sincerely doubt it is a conspiracy " in order to have a docile, obedient citizenry." Now there are countries where school text books are deliberately and conciously distorted to maintain the party interpretation of the past (or just to maintain the national consensus) but I don’t think this is the case in Britain or the United States. I worry more that to many in the population know so little about even the basic events in the past. See [Britain](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/7755562/British-teenagers-have-huge-gaps-in-historical-knowledge.html)and [the US](http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/civics-education/what-americans-dont-know-about.html) (just the first two articles I could find). ---
**Author:** ![Bridget\_Burke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7cd45c/32.png) [@Bridget\_Burke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bridget_Burke)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2014, 11:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-we-be-for-sure-about-history/686924/37 "2014-04-27T11:14:40Z")
> [@jtur88](#): > > That’s true, but I never said the information did not exist, I said it is hidden like Easter eggs in places where it must be searched out by the few who are motivated to do so. I only allowed that Wiki is an easy and sufficiently reliable to place to find it, not the only one. Public schools and news channels make value judgments abut what shall be overt and covert, in terms of the base of historical knowledge administered in encapsulated form to the masses. I haven’t been in first grade for a long time, but I bet the Pastor Weems version of Washington’s cherry tree is still being taught. Along with throwing a dollar across the Potomac and standing up in a boat. Damn, I thought I was old. We never learned the Parson Weems legends. But Washington had quite an arm on him. A recent biographer recounts artist Charles Willson Peale’s experience in 1772. > [@](#): > > One afternoon, several young gentlemen, visitors at Mount Vernon, and myself were . . . pitching the bar . . . when suddenly the colonel [Washington] appeared among us. He requested to be shown the pegs that marked the bounds of our efforts ; then, smiling, and without putting off his coat, held out his hand for the missile. No sooner did the heavy iron bar feel the grasp of his mighty hand than it lost the power of gravitation . . . striking the ground far . . . beyond our utmost limits. We were indeed amazed, as we stood around, all stripped to the buff . . . having thought ourselves very clever fellows, while the colonel, on retiring, pleasantly observed, “When you beat my pitch, young gentlemen, I’ll try again.” > > Chernow, Ron (2010-10-05). _Washington: A Life_. Penguin Group US. Kindle Edition. And Washington _did_ stand up while crossing the Delaware. Everybody did. Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze painted the famous picture in 1851–in Germany. He didn’t know that [Durham boats](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durham_boat) were the main craft used that night, not rowboats. They were cargo boats, not meant for carrying seated passengers. Much of ancient history (and prehistory) is somewhat obscure. But the best response to wondering about the whole story of the past is to learn more–not discard it all as bunk. Don’t whine because the whole truth wasn’t forcefed in the first grade. Read a book. Or check out the 'net. And keep your critical faculties about you. ---
**Author:** ![MarcusF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/67e7ee/32.png) [@MarcusF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MarcusF)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2014, 11:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-we-be-for-sure-about-history/686924/38 "2014-04-27T11:47:14Z")
> [@sbunny8](#): > > I was trying to suggest that you go to Richard Carrier’s book for some examples. I am not a historian, don’t even play one on TV. Richard Carrier is a historian. Check out _his_ examples. If I still had the book here on my desk I’d flip it open and quote some of it for you, but I borrowed it from the library and had to give it back after reading it. > > The point of Baye’s Theorem is that when you have competing explanations it’s not enough to merely ask which one fits the facts, you also need to ask how common (or how rare) such explanations are. Hence the aphorism “When you hear hoof beats, think horses not zebras”. Ideally, this should be quantified with numbers and plugged into a formula to determine the likelihood of one explanation over another. Real scientists use BT all the time, in things like trying to determine whether the results of a drug trial are actually due to the efficacy of the drug or by random chance. What I get from Carrier’s book Proving History is that historians rarely apply BT with actual numbers, but they SHOULD. Instead, historians use words like “perhaps” and “probably” without ever quantifying what those words mean. I look forward to the day when this will change. > > If anyone reading this is a historian, please don’t take this as a personal attack on your sense of integrity. I’m not suggesting that you are failing in your duties. All I’m saying is that we ought to re-evaluate what those duties are and begin training the next generation of historians to use mathematics in their work. Yeah, I know it sounds strange to say that. I thought so to before I read the book. Now I’m convinced. > [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > I’d question how correct Carrier’s application of Baye’s theorem to the field of history is. > > Carrier is most notable for his claim that Jesus was not a historical figure. I can accept the argument that Jesus was not a divine figure but denying his historical existence seems the less probable alternative by far. Carrier seems to have let his atheism bias his assessment of what’s believable. Obviously the historian should try and evaluate the degree of certainty around events in the past but I get very nervous at trying to apply numerical, statistical methods to achieve certainty. In part this is because probabilities are just that - probabilities. Unlikely things happen. The hoof-beats might well be zebras because they just got loose from the zoo and you didn’t know there had been an escape. Which is the main problem with applying maths to history, you rarely know all the facts, and what you know is probably not precise. ETA I’m not against applying statistics and numerical methods where appropriate. I was a physicist/engineer before I became a historian so I recognise their value but I also recognise their limitations. ---
**Author:** ![bob\_2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bob_2/32/3341_2.png) [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2014, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-we-be-for-sure-about-history/686924/39 "2014-04-27T16:03:10Z")
I subscribe to a forum on Napoleon. I rarely have anything useful to contribute but it is fascinating to see how the true experts tease out the ‘facts’ from the dross. There is an enormous bibliography about the Emperor and a great deal of it is pure invention. Many things that are commonly believed, and are still taught in schools are just not borne out by the original texts available to scholars and enthusiasts today. A trivial example is the oft quoted saying - “An army marches on its stomach.” Not only did he not write it, or be quoted contemporaneously to have said it, he failed to follow the principle in Spain, where his armies went hungry. It is often said that he suffered from hemorrhoids at Waterloo, but again contemporaneous documents seem to show that this was not the case. Many accounts were written after the war ended by people on both sides. The problem is that the Royalists on the French side, as well as the victorious English, were quite keen to discredit him. There is no evidence that Hitler only had one testicle either:) ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2014, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-we-be-for-sure-about-history/686924/40 "2014-04-27T16:38:50Z")
> [@sbunny8](#): > > I was trying to suggest that you go to Richard Carrier’s book for some examples. I am not a historian, don’t even play one on TV. Richard Carrier is a historian. Check out _his_ examples. If I still had the book here on my desk I’d flip it open and quote some of it for you, but I borrowed it from the library and had to give it back after reading it. > > The point of Baye’s Theorem is that when you have competing explanations it’s not enough to merely ask which one fits the facts, you also need to ask how common (or how rare) such explanations are. Hence the aphorism “When you hear hoof beats, think horses not zebras”. Ideally, this should be quantified with numbers and plugged into a formula to determine the likelihood of one explanation over another. Real scientists use BT all the time, in things like trying to determine whether the results of a drug trial are actually due to the efficacy of the drug or by random chance. What I get from Carrier’s book Proving History is that historians rarely apply BT with actual numbers, but they SHOULD. Instead, historians use words like “perhaps” and “probably” without ever quantifying what those words mean. I look forward to the day when this will change. > > If anyone reading this is a historian, please don’t take this as a personal attack on your sense of integrity. I’m not suggesting that you are failing in your duties. All I’m saying is that we ought to re-evaluate what those duties are and begin training the next generation of historians to use mathematics in their work. Yeah, I know it sounds strange to say that. I thought so to before I read the book. Now I’m convinced. There’s nothing mathematically worse than using one data point for a general claim. I haven’t read Carrier’s book so I can’t say anything about it. I \*can \*say that other expert historians publicly dispute him. I \*can \*say that you need to provide many more than one example of using Bayes in history to show that it is a useful technique, even in highly specific circumstances. I \*can \*say that mathematicians, statisticians, and other scientists use Bayes “all the time” only if you mean that as a figure of speech and that the usefulness of Bayes is a highly and contentiously argued topic in the field. I \*can \*say that as I already pointed out, history started to turn heavily toward mathematics more than 50 years ago and your contention that they should “begin training” historians in math is sheer ignorance. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-we-be-for-sure-about-history/686924.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-we-be-for-sure-about-history/686924.md?page=3)