Yesterday we had a real dust up over late afternoon tea. Four highly opinionated and voluble talkers carrying on over current events. We all four basically agree that national politics have taken a turn for the worse under the present Republican regime and a low opinion of ethics and morals in politics in general. We also cover at least three and possibly four generations.
I suspect that similar discussions are going on all over the country, possibly the world. Here’s a taste of the contentiousness of our discussion: a debate over what percentage of the populace are talking about policy and ethics would take our group at least a half hour and we would never agree on anything. My contention that discussions are going on all over would be voted down three to one. If we voted.
Why am I bothering to write about this? Because, while thinking over our spirited and enjoyable conversation this morning, I realized something that may be important: History is not and never will be a science.
I was raised on the scientific method: Observe. Hypothesize. Test with experiments. Publish results. Other scientists retest. Form consensus. Repeat the cycle for the next few centuries and see what comes of it. Electric teakettles, TikTok, quantum mechanics, ball bearing drawer slides, computer networks, ivermectin, and mRNA vaccines for cancer are a few results of the scientific method.
Science relies on progress based on reproducibility of results. There are no historical experiments. Only the real event and hazy human records and memories.
No scientist can rerun the 1962 Seattle World’s Fair, although we have two jelly-jar drinking glasses with the Space Needle on printed on them in our dish cabinet on Vine Maple Farm.
Not sure of your definition of historical experiments, but there are human social experiments happening, forever and continuing. The current US regime is an experiment in how laws and norms can be ignored. That experiment, sadly, has been pretty successful, to date.
Always enjoy your perspective.