Nguyet Nguyen Do Minh (Na) 11EMW October 31th, 2009
To what extent does the author substantiate his claim that the
study of history can be pursued scientifically?
We often argue that history, a social science, should not be approached using scientific method-experimentation and observation of empirical evidence to devise laws of nature. Jared Diamond, however, argues that the study of history can be pursued scientifically by pointing out the similarities between the methodology that the 2 disciplines adopt and the consequent difficulties that arise-law of causation, prediction, and complexity.
The author suggests that both science and history employ the same methodology. Empirical evidence is fundamental to both areas of knowledge; similarly, reasoning, either to arrive at a general law (science) or to interpret and explain purpose and functions of events (history). He explains the similarity between understanding biological features and events leading up to wars to demonstrate the common basis they work on. Diamond also argues that “natural experiments”-a comparative method, is useful in both types of science. These similarities, he believes, imply the feasibility of approaching historical studies scientifically. However, besides basic problems associated with the scientific method-the inaccuracy of sense perception and paradigmatic differences, accounts of historical events might not withstand the scientific falsification test as we can hardly test the authenticity of events that happened. Even primary resources were probably based on what people considered important. We usually know more about the upper class because it was what they did which got recorded. It might not be so in experimental science: although Galileo’s theory about the spherical Earth was severely condemned at the time, it survives till modern time.
