• [email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        55
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        2 months ago

        TIL I’m your AP history teacher (just kidding, but I do enjoy recreationally lying to children)

        • Skalix@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          2 months 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.

      • Peruvian_Skies
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        19
        ·
        2 months 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
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          5
          ·
          2 months 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
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            2
            ·
            2 months 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
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          2 months 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.