It would be easy to construct situations where historians could have opportunities to make and test hypotheses. Just find a section of history they don’t know anything about, and give them a summary of 99 years, and ask them to predict what happens in the 100th. Or give them a summary of a couple years and ask them to fill in more complex details. Or give them descriptions of what happened on either side of a year, and ask them to figure out what happens during that year. Then see if they predict accurate things.
It would be easy to construct situations where historians could have opportunities to make and test hypotheses. Just find a section of history they don’t know anything about, and give them a summary of 99 years, and ask them to predict what happens in the 100th. Or give them a summary of a couple years and ask them to fill in more complex details. Or give them descriptions of what happened on either side of a year, and ask them to figure out what happens during that year. Then see if they predict accurate things.
I can’t see how could that possibly work in practice. At best you’ll be constructing exams for individual historians, but not tests for theories.
I see, um, some tension between the bolded parts… X-)