Can Double Blind Experiments Be Applied to Historical Research?

That’s the question posed by one of the lectures in the recently announced Capital Science Series sponsored by the Carnegie Institution for Science of Washington, DC.  Details on this particular lecture below and you take a look at the full schedule of talks here.

Wed, 10/05/2011 – 6:45pmSchema and Bias: A Historian’s Reflection on Double-Blind Experiments

BALZAN LECTURE

Dr. Carlo Ginzburg University of California, Los Angeles Department of History

Winner of the 2010 Balzan Prize, Dr. Ginzburg was honored for the exceptional combination of imagination, scholarly precision and literary skill with which he has recovered and illuminated the beliefs of ordinary people in Early-modern Europe.

How can we conceive a fruitful dialogue between the humanities and sciences? Dr. Ginzburg will look at the historian’s craft from new and unexpected angles and discuss whether double blind experiments, used in medicine to test drug effectiveness, can be applied to historical research.

Co-hosted by the Carnegie Institution for Science with the Embassies of Italy and Switzerland, and the Balzan Foundation.