Primary sources make shit up too tho
Comment on Anon is a tour guide at a museum
Apytele@sh.itjust.works 4 days ago
Just goes to show how easy history is to alter tho. If he can do this as a one-off for shits and gigs just think what the people doing it on purpose are up to.
Zwiebel@feddit.org 3 days ago
Peruvian_Skies@sh.itjust.works 3 days ago
But if you read a primary source, that’s one persom who had the opportunity to make stuff up. With a secondary source, even if the primary it’s based on is legit, there’s some other guy who wasn’t there and may either be lying to you or misinterpreting the primary source his report is based on. Each new level of isolation adds another opportunity to stack both lies and mistakes onto the data.
It’s not that you can’t go wrong with primary sources. It’s that you can go a lot wronger without them.
skulkingaround@sh.itjust.works 3 days ago
Counterargument, secondary sources are often a good filter for bogus primary sources. This is the primary reason Wikipedia does not allow primary source references.
Peruvian_Skies@sh.itjust.works 2 days ago
That’s very different. Wikipedia doesn’t allow people to edit their own pages. They don’t have rules against linking to interviews with persons involved in an event, for example.
AeonFelis@lemmy.world 2 days ago
The main problem with primary sources is that they are often involved in the event itself - or at least greatly affected by it - which makes them the most biased.
WalrusDragonOnABike@lemmy.today 4 days ago
My AP history teacher liked to make up stuff. But like, he’d say he made it up right after telling the made-up thing.
Gullible@sh.itjust.works 3 days ago
TIL I’m your AP history teacher (just kidding, but I do enjoy recreationally lying to children)
Skalix@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Just like my old physics teacher. Heard stories about him telling the students, that Pd (Palladium) is named after him (his last name had the same abbreviation).
Also jokingly using the screen of a calculator as a scale for weighing metal ball bearings.
WalrusDragonOnABike@lemmy.today 3 days ago
Was your brother my 6th grade history+english teacher who spent more of class time having recess or playing Risk (the board game) than anything else?
Gullible@sh.itjust.works 3 days ago
Unfortunately, I’m an only child. But I could ask my sisters whether they have any siblings who fit that description.
Apytele@sh.itjust.works 3 days ago
I mean that’s a great illustration of the importance of those primary sources in a memorable way, especially if you’re out of school now and it’s stuck with you that long.