5 ms·

Harari keeps repeating "this is just an hypothesis" or "we can't be sure of what happened at that time" during the whole book. He highlights multiple hypothesis

Harari keeps repeating "this is just an hypothesis" or "we can't be sure of what happened at that time" during the whole book. He highlights multiple hypothesis as well in all chapters, to compare them. Actually the blog post literally shows that, by repeating "We’re not sure". I can imagine many critics to the book, but presenting speculations as fact is definitely not one of them.

sixstringtheory 7y ago
This is what impressed me the most about the book, and why I’m so confused as to how this can be the main criticism of it that I see. I’d like to see a speculation stated as fact, but have yet to see a satisfactory example.
mirceal 7y ago
ha. sure, one can see it this way. or you can read it, think that it makes sense and take it as a fact. i can tell you all day that's a hypotesis, when I'm focusing on the hypotesis you're going to go with it. i also fundamentally disagree with speculating on what might have happened 10000 years ago. If you're going to speculate present at least 2-3 plausible scenarios.
arnoooooo 7y ago
On the other hand, there are several instances where he presents pretty big counterexamples to his theories, dismissing them as "the exception that confirms the rule". This makes no sense (and reflects a complete misunderstanding the expression).
youdontknowtho 7y ago
I wasn't referring to his hypothesis. I was referring to how he covered some historical movements as just the received wisdom regarding them. It was like "Time-Life covers human history". There were somethings that can't be divorced from their historical context. It's the same way that people lump all of something into a generic pile...like all Islam is basically Whabism (not saying that he said that but many people do) or things like that. Like I said, I'm probably not expressing myself very well here.

sixstringtheory 7y ago

This is what impressed me the most about the book, and why I’m so confused as to how this can be the main criticism of it that I see. I’d like to see a speculation stated as fact, but have yet to see a satisfactory example.

mirceal 7y ago

ha. sure, one can see it this way. or you can read it, think that it makes sense and take it as a fact. i can tell you all day that's a hypotesis, when I'm focusing on the hypotesis you're going to go with it. i also fundamentally disagree with speculating on what might have happened 10000 years ago. If you're going to speculate present at least 2-3 plausible scenarios.

arnoooooo 7y ago

On the other hand, there are several instances where he presents pretty big counterexamples to his theories, dismissing them as "the exception that confirms the rule". This makes no sense (and reflects a complete misunderstanding the expression).

youdontknowtho 7y ago

I wasn't referring to his hypothesis. I was referring to how he covered some historical movements as just the received wisdom regarding them. It was like "Time-Life covers human history". There were somethings that can't be divorced from their historical context. It's the same way that people lump all of something into a generic pile...like all Islam is basically Whabism (not saying that he said that but many people do) or things like that. Like I said, I'm probably not expressing myself very well here.