The Science of History

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I wrote previously how I transitioned from science to history. Looking back on it, there is a certain science of history. I’m not talking about the history of science, which is a topic that many historians write about. I’m talking about the overlap between how science and history are studied, both the similarities and the necessary differences.

In science, we can create hypotheses to explain our observations, then test them, often with controlled experiments. We all have biases, and science “corrects” for these in three ways:

Self-awareness of those biases: If you know your weaknesses, you can force yourself to look beyond them, or enlist someone else to check your work.
The collaborative/competitive nature of science: The more controversial your findings, the more likely some other scientist will try to prove you wrong (especially if it contradicts that scientist’s findings).
Documentation of uncertainty: Every scientific report documents those things you’re not sure about. That could mean anything from assumptions made, fuzziness of data analysis, unexpected results, whatever. This gives an opening for others to see the data.

In history, controlled experiments aren’t possible. You work with what you have, which can be reliable or unreliable. The trick is that it is often hard to determine which is which. I’ll get into that more below.

Much of my later scientific career was compiling and analyzing environmental toxicity and fate of chemicals to determine if they were safe. The initial phase was always to collect whatever data were already available. One phenomenon that became apparently early on, at least to me, is that data largely accepted by some (e.g., industry) as reliable, were actually not. A toxicity number from a 2015 peer-reviewed published paper would be cited, but a closer look showed the number cited in a previous paper, which had cited an even earlier paper. That “definitive data point” from 2015 may actually have been derived from a pre-Good Laboratory Practices (GLP) study done in 1958. And somewhere along the way someone made a typo and the number carried into the later reports wasn’t even a correct reporting of the originating study, which was probably invalid anyway. I commonly recommended a client conduct new studies under modern quality standards so we had a number we could actually rely on scientifically, not just expeditiously.

The same phenomenon of data unreliability occurs in the compilation and evaluation of historical data. Depending on how fine our examination, we rely on previously published books, published papers, contemporaneous newspaper accounts, printed speeches, and actual handwritten letters. Like in science, it’s best to go to the primary documentation. But that primary documentation can be sketchy in the pre-recording era. Historians often report statements attributed to Abraham Lincoln written in reminiscences by a colleague decades after the encounter (and biased by the since-martyrdom after Lincoln’s assassination) as if they were actual quotes. So, like our 2015 paper shouldn’t simply be taken as a “quote” of the actual 1958 data point, we historians have to be careful not to give the same weight to a “recollected” quote as to something written in Lincoln’s hand. Yet some do.

Similarly, not all data are created equal. In science, we had historical data that often was poorly documented, not done in compliance with modern quality and reproducibility standards, and perhaps with errors from typographical to scientific. But we also had modern GLPs, standard toxicity testing procedures, proven statistical analysis techniques, and a requirement to quantify any uncertainties. Old uncertain data could simply be replaced by new data using modern techniques. In history, you can’t “re-do” a reminiscence from a long-dead rapporteur. It is what it is. Except when it isn’t really what it is because the reporter may have gotten it wrong. Often, rapporteurs lied to enhance their standing as “friend of Lincoln.”

Well surely, we can trust the printed page, right? Not really. Historians have to deal with the malleability of “data” in the sense that speeches and letters printed in a newspaper may not be as accurate as you might expect. Today we have recorded words and lawsuits if newspapers (real or online) misrepresent what was said. Then there is video (although deep fakes might make that unreliable as well). Back in Lincoln’s time the newspaper would report “verbatim” what the reporter managed to take down with pencil and paper in a noisy crowd with no microphones or amplification. Except only a small number actually tried to capture the verbatim speech, especially early in Lincoln’s political career. Mostly they would paraphrase, even some of the parts they claimed to be quotes. Lincoln dealt with this by personally reviewing the printed version of his speech prior to publication. It helped to know the newspaper editors. It also allowed him to tweak his phrasing if he thought it sounded better than what he actually said.

There was also the difficulty of newspapers being entirely partisan. During the Lincoln-Douglas campaign of 1858, Douglas-friendly papers would clean up his racist language while garbling Lincoln’s words. Lincoln-friendly papers, while not quite as hard on Douglas, made sure that Lincoln’s speech got its best possible presentation. Being honest and fair, Lincoln used the Douglas papers for reprinting Douglas speeches at the debates while using Lincoln papers for his own in a book on the debates. The resulting book was fair and balanced, at least as much as that was possible.

There also is a common problem of how non-scientists/non-historians understand the information, or just as often, mis-understand the information. Today’s media tend to treat a single scientific study as if it exists in its own universe. In reality it exists only as a data point in a compendium of related data points that, combined, provide the context for evaluation. The public has no way of interpreting a single data point, so it’s almost inevitable that they won’t get the whole picture.

Likewise, Lincoln quotes are so often taken out of their context and used by opposing parties to mean entirely opposite things. Even historians sometimes do this, but the public is again at the mercy of “the expert” (or media talking head) interpreting it for them. Most of the time they get it wrong and often there is no clear “right” or “wrong” but plausibly alternative interpretations. There’s a reason there are so many books about Lincoln and more coming out every year (including mine).

So, how do we deal with all this?

To play off the old realtor saw – context, context, context.

First, we need to evaluate the data quality. Was the source reliable? In science, that means was it a controlled study with adequate quality standards. In history, that means did it come from a written letter, a reliably captured printed document, a reminiscence, etc.

Second, do we have corroborating evidence? Are the scientific data consistent with other independent data? A historical reminiscence might be valid if more than one person independently related the same basic story. There might be slight differences in how it was described, but if multiple people mention an incident, it makes it more likely the incident was real.

Third, is there context? You can’t draw a conclusion from one data point, you need to review the compendium of all the available data. That includes evaluating any apparent contradictions and uncertainties.

For historical quotes, evaluate all aspects of the context of the quote. If the quote comes from a speech, and you’ve confirmed the likely accuracy of the words, start by making sure you understand the entire sentence of the quote. It’s not uncommon to have someone cherry pick a partial sentence and pass the fragment off as the meaning, which may not be the case. Then make sure your interpretation is consistent with what the sentence means within the paragraph. Then the page, then the speech, and then the bigger picture of times.

A good example is when people cherry pick a particularly unflattering few lines from the Lincoln-Douglas debates. The quote may sound terrible without context, but when looked at within its full context it sounds a lot less threatening. Another example is how people mis-interpret (or dis-interpret) Lincoln’s letter to Horace Greeley a month or so before issuing the Emancipation Proclamation. The meanings attributed to the letter by some are reflective of their biases and their agendas, not what we know Lincoln meant.

The bottom line on all this is that we all have to be careful to check our own biases, determine the reliability of the data, and provide the full context of the information such that our interpretations are both plausible and fully supported by logic and fact. That isn’t always easy to do, even for people who are trying to do so. The problem is complicated by the realization that some people are trying to disinform rather than inform. And yes, that happens in history as well as in science.