- Joined
- May 18, 2005
- Location
- Spring Hill, Tennessee
Some of the information below came from another post which wasn't really relative to the post, so I thought some may find a way to chime in here.
In the course of the conversation it was suggested by someone that a number of incredible books are available that are ground breaking - and probably nothing was better than them. Problem is, many of these works are fifty years old. Ground breaking information does take place every so often, but it is rare that something that old is still considered ground breaking especially when it was researched so long before the information age. So what I stated in the post was:
I'm saying that Connelly's (or whoever's) conclusions of historical events are dated, and may or may not stand up to new information that has surfaced. So, I suppose I'm saying that I wouldn't use Connelly's conclusions as documentation or evidence to support much of anything unless I had more recent materials that have surfaced in primary sources or modern scholarship that concurs in everyway with his conclusions. I'm not saying that he or any other older book is wrong, just that what an author or historian says is not fact.
Simply put, historian's can't cite their own opinions, but their opinions can and will be cited as fact. (Wow, now that's ground breaking!)
That in itself is horrible, but true. Just because a historian says something doesn't mean it is fact, the facts are what the primary sources said, not what the historians chews up and spits out to you. But if someone reads a historian's work, that person can factually say that "Connelly", or whoever they are quoting, wrote it (and that is fact) and it must be fact because they used primary sources in their citations. If I only had a nickel for every citation I have seen used out of context or cherry picked for a piece of relative information for the persons writing their idea of a historical event. Then new information surfaces and nobody can believe it because they suffer from Confirmation bias and Attitude polarization.
It's not about what Connelly or other historians think, it's about the documentation or evidence that they used to come to their conclusions.
I won't take any leap for granted. If a historian says that Private Schmuck said "blah, blah, blah" in quotes, I probably won't take the time to look it up. But if the historian is trying to make a point out of something that Schmuck said that is a leap in itself??? Look out Private Schmuck - I'm coming for your accounts!!
This way we can judge for ourselves what Schmuck says in his entirety - the entire five paragraphs, not just the fraction of a sentence that says "blah, blah, blah" and supports the historian's conception of the historical event.
In the course of the conversation it was suggested by someone that a number of incredible books are available that are ground breaking - and probably nothing was better than them. Problem is, many of these works are fifty years old. Ground breaking information does take place every so often, but it is rare that something that old is still considered ground breaking especially when it was researched so long before the information age. So what I stated in the post was:
I'm saying that Connelly's (or whoever's) conclusions of historical events are dated, and may or may not stand up to new information that has surfaced. So, I suppose I'm saying that I wouldn't use Connelly's conclusions as documentation or evidence to support much of anything unless I had more recent materials that have surfaced in primary sources or modern scholarship that concurs in everyway with his conclusions. I'm not saying that he or any other older book is wrong, just that what an author or historian says is not fact.
Simply put, historian's can't cite their own opinions, but their opinions can and will be cited as fact. (Wow, now that's ground breaking!)
That in itself is horrible, but true. Just because a historian says something doesn't mean it is fact, the facts are what the primary sources said, not what the historians chews up and spits out to you. But if someone reads a historian's work, that person can factually say that "Connelly", or whoever they are quoting, wrote it (and that is fact) and it must be fact because they used primary sources in their citations. If I only had a nickel for every citation I have seen used out of context or cherry picked for a piece of relative information for the persons writing their idea of a historical event. Then new information surfaces and nobody can believe it because they suffer from Confirmation bias and Attitude polarization.
It's not about what Connelly or other historians think, it's about the documentation or evidence that they used to come to their conclusions.
I won't take any leap for granted. If a historian says that Private Schmuck said "blah, blah, blah" in quotes, I probably won't take the time to look it up. But if the historian is trying to make a point out of something that Schmuck said that is a leap in itself??? Look out Private Schmuck - I'm coming for your accounts!!
This way we can judge for ourselves what Schmuck says in his entirety - the entire five paragraphs, not just the fraction of a sentence that says "blah, blah, blah" and supports the historian's conception of the historical event.