I’ll never understand why other disciplines can’t stay in their goddamn lane. If I ever need data from an epidemiologist…I’ll ask! Nicely too! I will however, never write about epidemiology and tell them they did it wrong. History is cool, so everyone wants to be an “expert.” It’s a real catch-22.
But the article says authors were an economist, pathologist, computer scientist, & physicist. Don't blame the epidemiologists!
That’s fair! And the person who put it together is a self-described “Science and Health Journalist.” That byline alone should set off alarms!
Sometimes computer scientists think you can answer any question with data and modelling. Sometimes they’re just cynically engaged in brand development in pursuit of future funding. Saying hyperbolic stuff to journos is endemic, as is them writing puff pieces - the economy of science journalism.
By contrast, a good physicist knows that testing basic physical processes is hard enough. Proving anything in history does look like hard work from that perspective.
Actual epidemiologists know how difficult it was to prove that smoking kills - even when it was pretty obvious. Yet in recent years lots of people have felt very comfortable opining on epidemiology when they’re totally unqualified - and medical doctors can be the worst at that 😂
The lonely thing about physics is that nobody you meet socially has any hope of understanding any of what you do really, and physicists create little stories about their stuff that are not that close to the reality to try make it accessible.
By contrast, who doesn’t like a good chinwag about history? It’s not that furthering academic understanding of history is easy, it’s just that the results are often comprehensible and relatable (at least by contrast). It’s a gift, as well as being a bit of a curse I imagine.
All my impression - may be a load of bunk of course.
No I think you’re on the right track! One of the issues with how people opine about history though is that they don’t really like to recognize that new developments in history happen. For instance, so many things have been revealed about African history, and are finally translated into English.
And a lot of things run counter to the classical model that most people take for granted. Which is almost made worse because a lot of pop culture runs parallel with history, but most often poorly.
And of course, I’ve never even met a historian that calls themselves an “expert.” We’re all too damn humble.
History, like other humanist disciplines, is "easy", so anyone can do it.
God I fucking wish it was so easy. *cries in trying to make sense of limited archival sources in a nearly dead language*
Says it all. Assessing the nuances of historical sources in Middle French or Latin written in ancient and largely forgotten shorthand is not possible for anyone. Any windbag can opine but what he (it is usually a he) spouts on such sources will be worthless