[unanswered]

Science is not an appropriate epistemic tool to answer an historical question.

[dragonwriter]

> Science is not an appropriate epistemic tool to answer an historical question.

Historical questions are questions of material fact, science is an appropriate epistemic tool to answer questions of material fact, and, so, I disagree.

Some historical questions may not be convenient to investigate scientifically given available tools, but that's a different issue.

[julienchastang]

Do you care to elaborate? For example, it was science ex post facto that established Luc Montagnier and not Robert Gallo was the first to isolate HIV [0]. Interestingly, Luc Montagnier has a role in the lab origin theory of SARS-CoV-2.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luc_Montagnier

[unanswered]

> Do you care to elaborate?

Not really because my viewpoint is not permitted on HN. Further discussion will likely draw moderator attention.

[Zenst]

> Science is not an appropriate epistemic tool to answer an historical question.

But it is used to validate, and without validation you would not have history, only opinions.

[samatman]

Strikes me that "radiocarbon dating" is the only thing which need be said to robustly disprove this.

[3pt14159]

It's not?

For example, "Did a nuclear power plant meltdown in Kansas yesterday?"

We use science for all sorts of stuff like that.