Quote:
Originally Posted by smurf
History is a form of science, that is you use a scientific method. The problem with the a science is they want experiments repeated. History does not do repetition ever but the outcome was certain.
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What does "was certain" mean?
Can you predict what is going to be happening in the Middle East five years from now, or fifty years? Can any living person or group do so?
Predicting the past is a mug's game, of course. It's easy to "predict" if you already know the answer. You can always produce an algorithm to match any known series of points. Whether it will match any points that you haven't fitted it to is sheer luck.
If you want an interesting test, there is predicting the historical outcome of a situation you haven't studied. In principle it would be possible to test your accuracy against the known facts. In practice we'd find it hard to be sure you didn't already know something about it.
A "certainty" that doesn't meaningfully apply to anyone's actual state of knowledge doesn't seem to count for much.