How the Study of History Resembles Astronomy

Historians often have to work with only bits and pieces of information when reconstructing the past. Astronomers do much the same thing. The farther out into the universe they look, the farther back into the past they probe. But the more distant the measurements that astronomers make, the less information they have to work with.

It may take many observations over a span of years for astronomers to develop slightly accurate data concerning planets in other star systems.

Equally so, it may take many analyses over a span of years for historians to develop more accurate data concerning events occurring even only a few centuries ago.

The bizarre behavior of England’s King Henry VIII, the most powerful and dramatic of the Tudor kings, may finally have been explained by a historical team that has concluded he suffered from a rare genetic blood trait. There but for the good health of one man the fates of many peoples and kingdoms could have been spared a host of wars.

Or maybe the conflicts that followed Henry’s death were unpreventable, converging from too many ancient casual lines to be averted by a the non-existence of a chance genetic mutation. There are so many incredible implications in this hypothesis.

If Henry’s insane actions were indeed driven by a genetic disorder rather than by a mere despot’s arrogant quest for a male heir, our ability to predict the probable outcomes of specific periods of leadership moves closer to a precise science (as opposed to anyone’s opinion).

That is, what if President George Bush’s decision to carry war into Iraq — a nation that threatened its neighbors mostly through bluff and bluster — was influenced by his own genetic flaws that may not be uncovered for several hundred years?

What if we developed the ability to screen the leaders of nations to see if their (apparently) irrational decisions might be influenced by genetic factors? Maybe Saddam Hussein was more than just an “Arab bad boy” who took his family’s cultural values for masculinity to an absurd extreme — maybe his judgement was driven to the brink of insanity by his genetic flaws.

The same might said of Adolf Hitler, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and Osama bin Laden — clearly three of the most evil men in recent history. Their irrational, war-like and murderous behaviors could be the result of genetic traits that unhinged their abilities to weigh the balance between right and wrong.

Of course, it could just be that murderous dictators and crime bosses like Hitler and bin Laden are simply men gone bad due to bad influences on their lives.

Either way, these attempts to explain mad, irrational behavior by rulers create a barrier between leaders and the responsibilities they owe for their actions. If we cannot hold our leaders accountable for their decisions then we have no moral truths to which we can look for guidance.

At some point, there was either a rational choice in Henry VIII’s life which set him on the path to murder and mayhem, or else there is no true free will and we are all incapable of making our own choices.

Aggressive and sometimes irrational behavior has been observed in wild animals. Sometimes that behavior is due to conditioning imposed by circumstances beyond their control. But there must be something in the personality or the nature of the creature that is enhanced beyond the point of self-preservative action. Whether there is a disease at fault or a psychosis, a “wild” animal that acts insanely must have some core rationality that would normally allow it to function as what it is.

A human being isn’t a human being simply because we are shaped that way — we are human because we function as humans on many different levels. Rational choice and free will may not be the sole purview of humans but they are (we believe) core parts of what makes us what we are.

These types of questions arise from the study of both history and the universe through the lenses of science. Science asks questions and leads us to ask more questions. Sometimes it provides answers. Sometimes it answers questions with more intriguing questions.

History and astronomy thus have a great deal in common.