Message #29650

[Bianca]

A statement that cannot be tested might very well be true, but it remains a belief. And no belief system, no religion, will set up verification standards which can be tested outside its faith.

Most facts in history are statements about the past, however distant or recent. They are most often statements that have gone through many heads and hands and are often open to some question. Proof usually means that the evidence for a statement looks good and that most others agree the evidence is reliable, correctly interpreted, and sufficient.

Stepping around the words “reliable,” “correctly,” and “sufficient” for the moment, facts in the humanities are neither perfectly reproducible nor immediately observable. Some researchers have tried revelation and seances, but asking Huwu Shan if he were ever in Texas seems impossible. One might, however, ask most of the people living in Hidalgo County about their first language.

When one looks at records such as interviews or diaries or recordings—when one asks others about what language they speak—the reply is primary data. So would a genuine letter written by Hwui Shan.

Primary data are sometimes considered to be the most accurate. An eyewitness or participant’s account of an event, written or recorded close in time to the event, seems reliable. Yet even a witness may have some bias that would cause an unconscious or conscious alteration in what “really” happened. In a genuine, primary letter, Hwui Shan could lie. Possible motives for bias need be considered by a historian. And one need always remember that a recollection of an event written fifty years later by a witness may not be as accurate as a memory written when the memory was fresh.