ToK Unit

There are many controversies in the History unit given that there is no way of going back and proving or testing information like there is in the Sciences. Apart from that, historians base most of their knowledge on primary and secondary sources that could be incorrect or ambiguous and thus, we never really know every detail of the past or have any confirmation of it. Within History, the concept of framing and the facts you choose to incorporate, whether it is in a study or a research, is crucial given that we are able to select what goes into a frame. However, this isn’t necessarily positive. If a historian were to select what goes into a frame, then they wouldn’t be looking at everything that happened that could be very significant. In other words, given the choice, a historian might select certain information that relates to what they are looking for and they could end up ignoring, forgetting, or purposefully leaving out significant information. 

This is where the term “confirmation bias” arises. Confirmation bias relates to this because if one is selecting what to put inside a frame, it is like finding information that is purposefully going to help you. For example, if a historian is studying the Latin American revolution, they can’t choose one side of it to study because that is not the full picture. The only way to fully understand what happened during a rebellion is if the frame encompasses all elements that were part of it. Even if some information goes against a thesis, blocking it out of the frame is not the correct thing to do because either way it is significant. 

Furthermore, in the episode of Star Trek, the flashbacks that the characters were having didn’t show the entire experience they went through. Thus, they only saw a limited frame and weren’t able, at first, to complete the story. This shows that due to the fact that they could only remember certain aspects of the experience, or their frame was unknowingly limited, they could not develop a conclusion. 

In the article “The Historian: 'A Wrestler With the Angel'” written by Daniel J. Boorstin, the idea that historians are constantly trying to remove ambiguities from the information they are trying to find is presented. In a way, they are trying to constantly add information to their frames in order to select what is correct and to complete their story. 

In conclusion, selecting what goes into a frame can be beneficial, however could also be negative if one is forgetting important information. On the other hand, a historian can’t always include every single detail because how will they reach a conclusion? In other words, when you have a question that is, for example “to what extent…”, you have to somehow lean towards one side of the answer in order to fully develop a response. Even without succumbing to confirmation bias and thus, getting equal information for both sides, a person still has to somehow pick an answer to reach a conclusion. Although we have to fit as much information that we can into a frame, even if it goes against our claim, we still have to be able to make a choice that answers the question we have.

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