Quote:As everyone's linking to Wikipedia :wink: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method
Is this practiced by historians? I think you guys need to distinguish or at least define 'Science' as it means to you. I've been thinking of 'scientific method', rather than the general term 'science' per se.
I must admit that like Tarbicus, I am also feeling confused by this discussion. I also would also not tend to classify history as a "science" in the same sense as biology, chemistry, geology, or such fields. This is NOT to say that a good historian does not form opinions based on solid research and credible sources, but I would also tend to place history somewhere else besides science. Science, unlike history for example, is not something I would see as subjective and open to interpretation. Historians certainly apply some scientific methodology in their work (such as creating a thesis and then doing research and trying to find facts to back it up), but unlike science, history has far more shades of gray. There are less definitely "right" or "wrong" answers, just some that are more right than others or have more supporting evidence.
Also, unlike science, the same historical facts can often be interpreted in different ways in order to reach very different conclusions. I suppose this does happen with science sometimes, but I suspect well-conducted scientific experiments are far less open to interpretation than what finds in the field of history (even if scientific results don't always give the expected or hoped-for results!).
Most importantly though, I would say science is about the synthesis of new information, whereas history is concerned with the interpretation and understanding of existing knowledge. History is always trying to fill in unanswered questions from the past.
I would certainly say that history can be approached in a "scientific" manner, but that it is generally too inexact to formally regiment as has been done with traditional science.
It may be true that some historians are inflexible and closed to new ideas, and unwilling to be "dynamic" and "creative" in their views, but then, this is not something which all scientists are innocent of either. There are established and popular views in about things in the scientific community too, and people who think out side these norms can also encounter strong resistance, even if their research eventually proves them correct.
Historians who seem reluctant to easily accept new ideas are doing their job-- a good historian is going to look for theories that not only seem logical, but are more importantly backed up by many solid, credible sources. This is not necessarily going to make a theory categorically "right", but all historians can really do in the end in play an odds game anyway -- odds are that if the majority of evidence supports an interpretation, it is far more likely to be right than wrong. We can't say for certain that Romans didn't sail to North America (I find this theory pretty silly myself
), but the odds based on what we know is that this almost certainly didn't happen.
In the end, both scientists AND historians who refuse to at least entertain new theories, even if they have merit and are backed by solid research, are probably just not very good at their job, or have some other hang-up. If you've encountered more historians than scientists that suffer from this flaw, then that's a real shame, but I don't think that should be some kind of reflection on the study of history in general.