write a conclusion for this essay:The prompt assumes that there are more similarities than differences in how both AOKs of Natural Sciences and History produce & explore knowledge. To explore this prompt, this essay will examine the knowledge framework of methods & tools as both disciplines have a generally accepted methodology in the pursuit of knowledge, and shares some commonalities and differences in terms of empirical evidence, replication, and underlying biases and errors leading to misunderstandings in both scientific and historical knowledge.  

Both AOKs rely on human observation and empirical evidence to support knowledge claims. Historians have researched ancient DNA, and the advancements in the technology for ancient DNA has allowed historians to introduce new knowledge into history, such as the origin and expansion of modern humans and admixture with archaic species. This provides historians with a more comprehensive understanding of the past which leads to greater objectivity in the field. Although the scientific and historical method shares similarities in a way that assumptions are based on observations, historians wanting to observe a phenomenon can’t recreate it in experiments and observe what happens, thus they build an understanding through evidence such as eye-witness accounts, physical artefacts, and they are unable to gather new evidence unlike the Natural sciences. In the Natural sciences, empirical evidence is used in the form of experiments, where scientists analyze data and reassess existing theories to gain a crucial understanding of the natural phenomena. For example, scientists collect new data on multiple sources, such as ice cores, rocks and rings and modern equipment, such as satellites and recorded temperature measurements to evaluate the signs of the Earth’s changing climate and the degree to which it is caused by human activities. Thus, both AOKs follow an established and agreed upon process by making observations from empirical data. However, historians aim to further their understanding and relationships with the past through a more diverse view of historical knowledge and engagement in critical analysis to minimize bias and subjectivity in knowledge claims. Whereas, in the Natural Sciences, scientists make systematic observations and rigorous data collection and peer view to minimize subjectivity and be as objective as possible. Given the framework of history, objectivity may be difficult to achieve fully due to the personal experiences and circumstances of a historian form a perspective which influences the interpretation and construction of historical narratives. An example of this is European powers justifying colonialism by saying that they had legal and religious obligations to control the land and culture of indigenous people. For instance, the imposition of their own biases and interpretations may lead to false historical narratives as well as social, cultural and pollical implications. Similarly, in the Natural Sciences, assumptions of scientific knowledge are based on observations, which could be an interpretation of data. Phrenology, which is the scientific study of the skull as indicative traits of a person’s character, is highly open to subjectivity. Phrenologists often attempt to characterize the human skull based on their race, social class, or gender. Evidently, these attributes are subject to existing social stereotypes and prejudices, which causes implications for the accuracies of pursuit of knowledge in Phrenology, which is then reassessed as a pseudoscience.  

Both AOKs use revisionism as a crucial aspect to the production of knowledge. In the natural sciences, knowledge claims cannot be absolutely certain because there may be technological advancements in the methods and tools of science in addition to the continuing reread in fields. Historical revisionism refers to bringing new perspectives into old topics to reassess historical understandings, with an objective to correct perceived biases. Historians do this by a critical examination of the sources, both primary and secondary. However, because an aspect of evaluation of sources in historical knowledge is the requirement of interpretation by a historian, as they seek to make claims about causes & relationships between facts which cannot be seen and tested. This suggests that the historians’ own agenda may introduce possible biases in the production/exploration of historical knowledge. Additionally, historians may tend to cherry-pick sources to suit their agenda. For example, holocaust deniers have backed up their false claims of the Holocaust being a hoax, by minimizing, denying or simply ignoring essential facts, as David Irving has claimed that the gas chambers weren’t used for killing Jews, but rather for de-lousing corpses and objects. This is an example of misleading interpretations of primary sources/empirical evidence. For instance, historians have proved these claims wrong through revisionism where various forensic research of the architectural and engineering plans of the concentration camps were used along with legal proceedings to present evidence supporting the historical record of the holocaust. 

Whereas, in the Natural sciences, scientists attempt to replicate an experiment to falsify the claim, in which when a study is replicated and achieves results following the hypothesis, it strengthens the scientific claim and increases the likelihood of the claim being accepted by a general population. Successful replication of scientific knowledge would mean that there were no hidden influences or biases or manipulations of the results. For instance, the cold fusion claims of achieving nuclear fission at room temperature made by Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann in 1989 was disproved by other scientists, famously Nathan Lewis, a professor at California Institute of Technology, has tried many variations of the experiment and has still had difficulty achieving Fleischmann’s results, thus underlying biases and errors behind the experiments were revealed such as unrecognized significant sources of error and measurement inaccuracies. Therefore, the initial scientific claim was falsified, which has led to a paradigm shift surrounding the ideas on cold fusion of nuclear.