Frazz by Jef Mallett for November 24, 2021

Experience is wonderful. It lets you recognize a mistake when you make it again.

Mrs. Olsen nails it!

I started off as a physics major but kept signing up for history courses because of all the cool stories. One day the VP for Academic Affairs called me into his office and said it was time for me to file a degree-plan sheet. “But, John,” I said (we’d long been on a first-name basis), “I’ve still only got 28 credits in my major, and I need 36, but you guys wouldn’t give me any for advance-placing my freshman year, so I can’t graduate until you add more physics courses to the curriculum.”

“But you already have 42 in history.”

“I do?”

Thus my noble college career came to an ignominious and premature conclusion. My chem and math minors were already in the books, tho, so I’m one of the few history majors with a BS instead of a BA.

“Making up theories”? You don’t just make up (real) theories – you might form a hypothesis (an “educated guess” based on observations and research). Then you would find a a way to test your hypothesis though experimentation and additional research. You would study it and test it again (in other ways) and again and have others repeat and critically examine the results. Through this a theory might develop.

Or … you could make some biased or wild speculations and jump to conclusions. You might be able to convince some that you have a real valid “theory” (especially if you can add the illusion of guilt to those who do not accept the “theory”). This is a part of my hypothesis of what seems to be involved in something called “Critical Race Theory”.

Oops, there goes another rubber tree plant

Big point for Mrs.Olsen!

My granddaughter hated history until she was moved to an accelerated class. Her regular history class was about memorizing events, names, and dates. Her accelerated class was about causes and patterns. It became her favorite class.

I do like Ms Olsen. Partly because she’s absolutely a Swede, but also because of comments like this one. She’s right, and this is exactly why history is so important.

And Caulfield isn’t going to get that degree in history if he thinks it’s just a matter of making stuff up. If his professors are any good, he’ll be disabused of this notion. ;-) You can make up all the theories you want, but if you can’t support them with evidence, they won’t be worth the paper they’re written on.

I emphasize with Caufield. I am studying how the Civil War started to avoid the upcoming Civil War.

Caulfield is absolutely correct – for 3 panels. 4th panel, she nails it. That is why we study history!

I have a theory that half the people commenting today don’t know half of what they’re talking about. =^_____^=

whistling quietly

Oh, and I see the single most blatantly ignorant thing I’ve ever read in the comments section up there, but I’ll leave it to you, gentle reader, to find it. rolling eyes

“You might form a hypothesis (an ‘educated guess’ based on observations and research). Then you would find a a way to test your hypothesis though experimentation and additional research. You would study it and test it again (in other ways) and again and have others repeat and critically examine the results. Through this a theory might develop.

Or … you could make some biased or wild speculations and jump to conclusions."

In your discourse about critical race theory, you have done the latter rather than the former. I wonder if you are able to ask yourself what your motivation for doing that could be.

Those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it.

You may make up hypotheses but if they have real value they can become theories.