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First off, history isn't really science, it's history. It's a liberal art, most people get a B.A. in history not a B.S. Historians may use science, but a geolog

First off, history isn't really science, it's history. It's a liberal art, most people get a B.A. in history not a B.S. Historians may use science, but a geologist dates rocks, not a historian. Historians don't learn or practice the scientific method, nor do they report their results in scientific journal format. Second off, viking history is Hacker News? Because reddit.com/r/history is a very appropriate place for this, and reddit.com/r/askhistorians would be a great place to talk to experts about this. But Hackers News? 0 historians, 0 experts, wrong subject matter. It's just weird. It devalues this place greatly when it imitates reddit because it cannot out-reddit reddit.

notatoad 9y ago
It's a correction to a story that was popular on HN last week. If we're going to upvote fake news, the least we can do is upvote the corrections or rebuttals to it.
bobwaycott 9y ago
There most certainly are B.S. degrees in history. There are also > 0 historians here, > 0 experts here, be they degree- or tenure-holding. Some of us don’t practice because we turned our history degrees into tech careers. Some of us have other interests outside history. Some of us think history includes tech. Some of us have interests outside tech, and that includes history.
- criley2 9y ago
  And some of us use multi-purpose websites like reddit to talk about our wide interests, while keeping Hacker News, started by the Silicon Valley tech-company incubator YCombinator intentionally for SV tech news and discussion, more in-line with the entire point. Again, the reddification of hacker news is its demise. You will always get better history discussion on reddit.com/r/askhistorians, a community full of verified historians, than Hacker News, a community of mainly programmers and those involved with modern tech industry. Specialization works. Diluting this website will destroy it, just as it destroyed reddit prior to subreddits.
- Chris2048 9y ago
  That's a lot of unquantified weasels.
megaman22 9y ago
There are people that have history degrees here, and historical and archaeological stuff hits the front page all the time. Along with economics, biology, astronomy, and all manner of other potpourri. Once in a while there's even a story about software and technology that makes it through...
gpvos 9y ago
I follow an ancient history blog (in Dutch)[0] that has regular "Method on Monday" posts devoted to explaining that history is science. It has specific circumstances such as a dire lack of data, but there are methods to work with that. [0] https://mainzerbeobachter.com/ https://mainzerbeobachter.com/

notatoad 9y ago

It's a correction to a story that was popular on HN last week. If we're going to upvote fake news, the least we can do is upvote the corrections or rebuttals to it.

bobwaycott 9y ago

There most certainly are B.S. degrees in history. There are also > 0 historians here, > 0 experts here, be they degree- or tenure-holding. Some of us don’t practice because we turned our history degrees into tech careers. Some of us have other interests outside history. Some of us think history includes tech. Some of us have interests outside tech, and that includes history.

criley2 9y ago
And some of us use multi-purpose websites like reddit to talk about our wide interests, while keeping Hacker News, started by the Silicon Valley tech-company incubator YCombinator intentionally for SV tech news and discussion, more in-line with the entire point. Again, the reddification of hacker news is its demise. You will always get better history discussion on reddit.com/r/askhistorians, a community full of verified historians, than Hacker News, a community of mainly programmers and those involved with modern tech industry. Specialization works. Diluting this website will destroy it, just as it destroyed reddit prior to subreddits.
Chris2048 9y ago
That's a lot of unquantified weasels.

megaman22 9y ago

There are people that have history degrees here, and historical and archaeological stuff hits the front page all the time. Along with economics, biology, astronomy, and all manner of other potpourri. Once in a while there's even a story about software and technology that makes it through...

gpvos 9y ago

I follow an ancient history blog (in Dutch)[0] that has regular "Method on Monday" posts devoted to explaining that history is science. It has specific circumstances such as a dire lack of data, but there are methods to work with that. [0] https://mainzerbeobachter.com/ https://mainzerbeobachter.com/