3.1 Historical Method Conclusions                                                                    (Statement 14)

History, like science, must be an open, transparent, critical process, based on reasoning, evidence, peer review, and persuasion rather than accepting any authority.

●          There is a lot of over simplified, biased or bogus history, used to promote one country or a religion or a government’s position, based on a small selection of facts, closed to other points of view, drawing conclusions not supported by all the evidence, and presented as the truth that all should believe;

●          But overall, as historians learn more, and more evidence is considered, and the interpretations are widely debated to discover the most reasonable ones, our historical explanations are revised, becoming more comprehensive;

●          Some say that we can only know parts of what happened – individual stories, specific scientific or historical facts – and that it is dangerous to assemble these facts into an overall story – because this will inevitably be simplified, leaving out important facts, perhaps falsely saying one event caused another, when in reality the causes are to complex to analyse;

●          But seeing the big picture, developing a global narrative, can help us understand where we come from as peoples, so we can learn from history, even if we do have to be aware of the risk of error and that we may learn more in future;

●          So when we make choices about our actions, history helps by showing what has happened before, what has worked and what has failed.  We must try to learn from our mistakes.