Wisdom can grow through experience, reading about the past, and thinking carefully about it. Historical study therefore goes beyond learning facts and figures to analyse why earlier choices worked or failed. People may instead select knowledge from the past to support a preferred argument or course of action. Serious analysis asks whether a proposal is likely to work, especially when new technology depends on methods that have failed many times before. Sellers have little incentive to admit that a new technology cannot solve every problem when buyers may spend billions on it. Historical analysis can therefore inform costly decisions about technology.
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Historical analysis tests new solutions against past failures
Historical study asks why earlier choices worked or failed and whether a proposal built around new technology repeats methods that have already failed.