I was wrong (and so was everyone)
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- Опубліковано 18 гру 2022
- Did 18th century firefighters really let buildings burn? Sources below. ■ AD: 👨💻 NordVPN's best deal is here: nordvpn.com/tomscott - with a 30-day money-back guarantee.
Here's the full, thoroughly referenced report: www.tomscott.com/corrections/...
Thanks to historical consultant Paul J Sillitoe: / paul-sillitoe-avi-cons...
Thanks to Afonso Noronha for the email sparking this whole discussion! All the corrections on this channel can be found here: www.tomscott.com/corrections/
The original video, now deprecated and unlisted: • THIS VIDEO IS WRONG: W...
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I'd like to apologise to any 18th-century firefighters reading this. ■ AD: 👨💻 NordVPN's best deal is here: nordvpn.com/tomscott - with a 30-day money-back guarantee.
Why a VPN Tom? I thought you didn’t like them?
@MR Beasst stop
Oof
History rewritten? Primary sources of journals or your archivist might be trustworthy.
@@ragnkja oh, I thought he disliked vpns
I don't know how Tom will recover from this controversy tbh, the 18th century firemen community was half of his fanbase
it's outrageous, I hope they get him soon
He was apparently also sponsored by 18th century insurers before this debacle, glad that some VPN company helped him out.
he cant keep getting away with this...
@@terencetsang9518 Even after he said that vpns suck. It seems like they are willing to sponsor anyone. Makes you wonder how little money they put in their service when they can advertise this much.
Necromancers were the other half.
"I was wrong, QI was wrong, Horrible Histories was wrong" - way to undermine 3 great British institutions 😭
I would hardly call QI and Horrible Histories "great British institutions"...
@@douglasherron7534 i think that was the joke
@@kli.4162 Maybe, but some people might disagree with you as they actually believe QI and HH are great British institutions.
@@douglasherron7534 like me, what are you trying to say about HH, punk?
Stephen Fry apologised on an episode once, saying (can't remember the%) that many of the past facts on the show wasn't actually real. I think the panel members started with minus points because of it.
Best quote of the 21st century. “Anyone who tells you how the world works is either a mathematician or they are selling something” -Tom Scott
Like : "Take the covid shot, the science has proven it works."
I do not see a mathematical point in it.
@@jeanmartin963 Really, you had to go straight for that? Try "science is just the current state of misunderstanding" (don't know if that idiom is common in English).
@@fredwupkensoppel8949 Yes I had to. A lot of people nowadays are confusing media advertising in commercials or talk show or even news with science.
It is scary.
Science is about doubt, not certitude.
On one hand you have some stupid people thinking the earth is flat, the moon is hollow, or vaccines having microchip with 5G. On the other you have some other stupids people believing all the interests of the people owning the media or corrupting politics is the truth.
Science is neither of them. It is not about believing all official speech is the truth, or believing all official speech is lies. It is not about believing, it is about absolut certitude built from the "science method" where everything is doubtfull before proven, and not believed, being true.
@@jeanmartin963 Aight, based, but I don't think the covid vaccine being safe is a point made by un-scientific methods.
Correction:
It's not "Anyone who tells you how the world works...," but "Anyone who tells you *they're certain about* how the world works..."
With a scientific background I have to say there is nothing that gets my respect more than someone who can turn round and say “I’m sorry, I was wrong!” In fact in life it is so much more valuable than being stubborn and digging your heels in. Well done on this, you just got a new subscriber.
As someone with only very basic education and upbringing, when someone is this eager to correct themselves they have my attention. I value truth and honesty very much. Maybe because I'm usually too slow to understand in time when I'm somehow being screwed over.
Luckily the world is brimming with not so bright people so I can blend right in😂😂😂
Same, man. Especially when I'm wrong. I hate being wrong, not in the way that I hate being seen wrong, but in the way that I hate being incorrect. I want to be accurate to reality.
Well said.
"History is a fractal" and "Anyone who's tells you they're certain about how the world works is either a mathematician or they're selling something" are a good couple of raw quotes.
Toms programming background is shining through with these quotes.
Actually, I don't even see how you can include mathematicians in there. Maths is all about made-up models, not the real world, though these models can often model the real world with reasonable accuracy. (Occasionally these models _are_ the real world when they're say, the sort of business models I implement in computer code, but even then, that's only when I can convince the business folks to accept a coherent model that's simple enough.)
+
@@Curt_Sampson okbuddyundergrad
@@Treebark1313 what
Only Tom can upload an apology video two years after the incident in question and have it be about 18th-century firemen. I would expect nothing less.
With two weeks of research on top of that.
And also sponsored
And I watched all of the video with no less pleasure, than the original one)
CGP Grey would also do it (and did it, but after two months, not years)
@@Jehty21 I'm assuming Gary did the research as the archivist
I love how generous Tom is. Instead of taking his L and hoarding it all for himself, he chose take make sure everyone else got their fair share. A real class act.
If I’m going down, you’re coming with me.
I resent the fact that I live in a country where UA-camrs hold themselves to account much more effectively than media organisations and lots of renowned career journalists.
But either way, good on you, Tom. Transparency is important, and it's clearly something you believe in.
I say this as a historian. There isn't a single historian who hasn't been wrong. What's important is how they address that. You addressed it perfectly, and that's precisely why I trust the information you present - because I know that if you learn you are wrong you will go out of your way to let people know that.
Many historians is wrong and will live their entire life denying they was ever wrong...
Luke. He was right about every detail we have reliable information to compare his work to.
It's analogous to the scientific method, applied cyclically. Continuous improvement.
Great work, Tom.
Theres definitely historians who are never wrong. Those who actually take care before they say things. It’s not that hard. If you don’t care about being accurate however it is very easy to be wrong a few times.
@@fireman1226576 Contrarian Andy moment
“I was wrong”
Understandable
“QI was wrong”
These things happen
“Horrible Histories was wrong”
My heart is broken and day is ruined
Oh QI is wrong all the time. Their twitter account posts all sorts of guff on a regular basis
You've summed up my feelings perfectly
Horrible Histories is frequently wrong unfortunately. Terry Deary was very prone to factoids about how terrible the past was, especially the rich.
@@jongmassey QI is wrong all the time if you count violations of the gricean maxims as being wrong - although in those case at least they normally correct themselves within a few minutes.
Tom is so good at his job that even when hes wrong, everyone's wrong alongside him
this is fantastic and the fact you took the time to apologize and correct yourself is amazing and more people should do it.
I love that Horrible Histories was so accurate overall that even Tom Scott is shocked when they're wrong
accu-rat*
Horrible Histories is great
It's one of those facts that is widely circulated that you just expect it to be true but when you dig into it, there's nothing on it. Like Martin Van Buren's tiger Cubs. I tried to learn more about them. The fact that the president of the United states had tiger cubs is cited everywhere, but there is no evidence they existed.
i think qi is more of a shocker given they usually debunk stuff like this
@@ThePurpleCheesecakeZebra They've had a few cases where things mentioned in previous episodes are brought up again and corrected.
Tom, the fact you can openly admit when a video is misleading, or even incorrect, *IS* the reason why we trust you. Its more than most people can say, and I personally find it a very honorable trait.
It's the difference between the blind trust of "Okay, I'll believe they're right because they say they are" and the more reasonable "I'll believe they're right, because they probably are, and I'm confident they'll let us know if they got it wrong."
Still waiting on him to admit he was wrong about that other thing two years ago.
@@thatoneguy33198 Which was?
@@davidstewart4570 that one thing 2 years ago of course duh
@@loirai4349 I have to disagree. Tom Scott was very right about that one thing two years ago.
Tom, I have been called stupid for apologizing ages later for my mistakes, and I am so, so relieved that somebody else is there that takes what they put out there seriously and correct themselves. Merry belated Christmas and a Happy new year!
I love your attention to detail. It would have been so easy to let this go, but you dug right into it! Merry Christmas :)
Congratulations on the asteroid!
"but I'm on the road now" - I like to imagine Tom always travels just like that, on foot, through the woods to his next filming destination.
😅
He finds a camera in the wild and decides "it is time for another break", thus he throws the backpack to the ground and records a quick video, then moves on.
Tom is inevitable
And he was just passing by those parish markers that someone had posted as fire marks at the time of that video, too! 😂
Personally I like to think that when the video finished that he put on a crash helmet and got into a Sinclair C5.
My trust increased. I don't trust the one who is faultless, I trust the one who publicly shares his mistake and corrects it.
The founding of Derry as the Walled City of Londonderry by some of the London Guilds, happened soon after the Hreat Fire. As a consequence, the city was divided into quarters by two wide streets to contain potential fires. It worked too. In one quarter on higher ground is Pump Street where the pump for the newly formed fire brigade was based. They attended to houses with an insurance plaque by the door. If someone didn't pay their insurance, the plaque was quickly removed. This is in the city's archives.
Tom Scott is such a good youtuber. He corrected a wrong from over a year ago, apologised for it, and stopped others from making the same mistake. 99.9% of all other youtubers simply wouldnt care
The last of the three is what’s actually great about this video. Most people didn’t know it wasn’t true. Now an extremely high profile public figure has brought attention to this mistake in our collective memory. He didn’t just fix his mistake, he fixed a mistake in the entire historical record.
Well to be fair, if another UA-camr discovered that, in fact, everyone else including QI was wrong on a subject they damn well would make a video about it. They may not care if it was their own mistake but what Tom was doing here was correcting everybody. Very pointedly.
And this, paradoxically, makes Tom more trustworthy as a source. When he discovers an earlier error, so do his followers.
Not to mention corporate media companies with waning journalistic integrity.
Exactly, that and him telling us not to trust him are why I consider him to be an incredibly trustworthy source of information.
- makes original interesting video years ago
- realizes of a POSSIBLE mistake
- makes a super thorough investigation on it to the degree of actually hiring somebody because he's unable to do more
- makes another super interesting video explaining the mistake and owning the error like a boss
- flawless plug for an actual good sponsor
- wishes Merry Christmas
- leaves
....I still get the feeling it was an AMAZING video.
Scott, you're awesome. Never change hahaha
“You shouldn’t trust me”
No, Tom, this is *exactly* why we trust you. You’re not a primary source, but we trust you to do the best you can and own up to mistakes.
Two week's worth of work for a clearly dedicated and experienced researcher can't have been cheap at all. Many kudos to Tom for going to that extent. Yes, it also effects his image and reputation, but that's still gotta be a lot of money.
NordVPN is actually a bit sketchy, especially with all the other youtubers attributing security benefits to them that it doesn't really provide. Tom has a video talking about that issue, but at least he only talked about the thing that VPNs actually do, so good one Tom.
Not to mention that he seems to be the only person who throws the "check your terms of service" caveat into his sponsorship, rather than just telling people to potentially violate their streaming provider's T&C.
We stan Tom Scott.
not sure about NordVPN being a "good" sponsor but I agree with everything else. atleast he isn't promoting gambling or established titles
Kudos for being such honest person.
I love you took the time, energy and money to clarify and do the proper due diligence to be factually accurate and back it up. Seems rare now days. Keep up the great work.
the irony is that these kinds of correction videos increase my confidence in tom by about 500%. literally who else in the game would pay a professional archival researcher for two weeks of full-time labor to investigate misinformation from 150 years ago.
i am now wondering if he now just payed the one and only Garry Brandan.
@@sirBrouwer Not unless Garry is AKA Paul J Sillitoe.
@@barneylaurance1865 that is unlikely I agree.
The Four Horsemen of Impeccable Integrity when owning mistakes:
-Tom Scott
-Kurzgesagt
-Coffeezilla
-Moist Critikal
@@owenleal
not youtube, but Opening Arguments podcast is really good about this, too
My grandparents house had a spot for a fire insurance plaque on the foundation. My grandpa explained that it was made of leather and had to be renewed every year at least here in Canada. That’s why none of the plaques really survived. I asked him if you weren’t insured if they’d let the place burn, and he said “no, but if mine and my neighbour’s house were both burning and one wasn’t insured, the insured house would take priority if there wasn’t enough resources”
That's actually brilliant, I hadn't thought that the placques might be made from a material that isn't going to be as durable
That makes a lot of sense, I was thinking priority putting out would be the main way it could work.
Thats most definitely where the story has come from. Larger fires without enough resources.
In fact, we still do this today, but it's decided by safety and the odds of the house surviving. If it looks as if a bushfire will potentially move through a housed area, a group will go through and mark houses in which a brigade can safely defend the home. They'll look for things like, tree health and not overhanging the house, gutters not full of leaves, clear escape route for the truck and personel, distance of clearway around the house, Perhaps even having a pool in which water can be sucked from etc.
@@AAARREUUUGHHHH They did it that way so they were cheap and easy to make, and were less likely to burn. They usually had a company crest and the year stamped into them, and might have had a plaque number as well to prevent theft and counterfeit claims.
@@thugson1166 Are you a mathematician or trying to sell something?
you're a legend for even putting this video out. 2years after the original video was released. we can be happy to have you
Tom, this is why I appreciate your videos much over than /some/ who try to pass off as reputable.
Literally thousands of teachers will be showing this video to their students. This is the very best of academic integrity in action. Total respect for Tom!
I wish they would but a lot of teachers have drunk the cool aid.
Only one source though. So, unless it's repeated, it isn't yet accepted
@@PianoKwanMan Its not one source though, its one aggregate paper on the sources which it gives reference to, (which means its more reliable then a vast multitude of separate sources and if you disagree you can check the work of the aggregate) the previous claims didn't even actually have a source, history resides in the art of the debate, nothing else.
Stop showing videos, how hard is it to write a two minute shpeal for students
@@TenaciousTentacruelthat students will never read? sure
That's the cool thing about history: Being wrong is exciting! And correcting their own mistakes is what makes someone a great person. Well done, Tom.
Honestly I would associate the joy of being wrong more with the sciences than the humanities.
@@TheEclecticDyslexic non-scientists cant find joy in correcting wrong information with new correct information?
@@TheEclecticDyslexic Humanities are science too, you silly.
Should be true for anyone who calls themselves an accademic. Being wrong is great because it means you've learned something new and are now closer to the truth.
@@p75369 it's true for lots of non academics too.
The fact that you pull this out of your archives, corrects it and informs us about the depths of it is what makes me trust you, Tom.
Great job, Tom! It's so refreshing to see an established UA-camr challenging himself like this. It shows a real commitment to historical accuracy and transparency.
This is why we love you Tom. You're always willing to admit when you make a mistake, which is more than you can say for most UA-camrs.
Or the "news"...
Still waiting for an update on the Lateral subtitle incident tho
@@staceygram5555 or the BBC! 😉
But...he really didn't. If the research said something and he ignored it, he would be wrong. The bloody page he referenced was wrong, so by default so was he. But he in no way made any error. I would call this a clarification. Hell, the source changed their own statement! And that is not Tom's error. He simply did what any good person would do. He told us the truth when he had the truth.
@@longcx7242 Oh dear. What incident was that?
I can't believe both Tom Scott AND Rattus Rattus got this wrong.
I know, they're my two favourite boys to learn from :(
The sad moment when it wasn't 100% accu-rat
@@pandakatiefominz no one is perfect. But he still updates when he finds out he's wrong
This may well be the only fact Horrible Histories has canonically got wrong.
It can be hard to find historical truths. If an idea is popular enough it can be accepted as true in even the most stringent communities even if it's not actually true. History becomes a very VERY long game of telephone.
Bravo Tom!! This is brilliant! One of the most important traits to have as an academic, and a free thinker, is to understand that anything and everything could be wrong. I love that you posted this, and would recommend leaving the previous video up to lead by example - don't hide it! Own it like you did to encourage the next generation of thinkers to not be afraid to make mistakes in the search for truth. Normalizing that we all get things wrong is what will remove the fear of getting things wrong and not trying at all.
I appreciate the fact that you cared enough to make this video with updated information. Well done! 👍
The reason I trust you is not because I think you never make a mistake, but because of how careful you are to avoid them, how you fix them, and how transparent you are about it. I can't tell you how nice it is to see at least one youtuber who is honest, and cares about facts...this is incredibly rare. Only a handful of others like this on the platform.
THIS!
Very well put my friend!
“The one to trust is not the one that seemingly has no mistakes; it is the one who displays them proudly.”
You can’t trust him, he’s evil.
Exactly. Even if he's right that we shouldn't trust him to always be giving factual information - at least I can still trust that he's done his due diligence and isn't trying to mislead people.
I can never resist a video that starts with “I hired an experienced professional archives research consultant”
YASS! Here's me wishing I had studied history beyond a BA and had studied further to get an interesting job like that. Sigh, but who knows about those kind of jobs when you're choosing a career path at age 17?
But the video didn't start with that at all.
@@Pizza_Is_Cool peepeepoopoo
That's gotta be a short playlist, tho.
thats 37% into the video that he said that
What other UA-camrs would pay someone for 80 hours of work to disprove their own video from years ago, make a correction video, and then pull the original video. Tom, you're quality stuff. That's why I keep coming back. Keep it up.
This video has +3.5M views in three weeks and he's got paid endorsements all over the place. So "smart" other UA-camrs is likely the correct answer.
He is still trying to correct misinformation. It's like the smart uniformed firemen responding advertising the insurance company.
@@slinky7355 Are you incapable of believing anyone has good intentions?
You say we shouldn't trust you but not many go to these lengths to correct things. Bravo.
So nice to see an "expert" willing to front up that they had used a bad source. (I am not going to say mistake, everyone makes mistakes) but only the people with integrity tell others. Kudos to you
If only news sources would hold themselves as accountable as you have for years Tom. Bless your heart for wanting to disseminate accurate information. You’re a king!
Yes, it's a bit annoying that the original page just changed its story with no addendum or footnotes or anything. All's well that ends well, I suppose.
There's no money (that they can see because laziness) in that!
As if people care about sources.
I wish News organizations would be required to print/post/broadcast major corrections, such as this, with the same prominence as the original story.
I can just see it now... News sources come out tomorrow and are like, "so remember two years ago when we reported Trump lost the American election... well.. we were wrong (and so was everybody)..."
Absolutely massive respect to you for hiring a professional researcher to address this, that's enormously excellent of you.
If modern media would pay their writers to do real journalism, now that would be excellent.
Absolutely. Its impressing!
Enormously excellent? Enormously expensive, I would say! ;)
This is the reason why I follow Tom Scott…. Actually going back to correct an error from a prior video. Modern media needs to follow this example.
I love the few seconds of real audio at the end of your videos. Very immersive and, at the same time, peaceful.
This apology is even more interesting than the original video, because it's taught me something that I (and apparently everyone else) didn't know. Fascinating stuff. I love history. Well done, Tom!
What apology?
@@hughobyrne2588 mea culpa
huh
As a history student I love you for mentioning that history is not about memorising dates but about the interpretation of data. Unfortunately, not everyone seems to be aware of this! Thanks for mentioning it and for putting in so much effort and money into doing history the right way!
Maybe if they didn’t teach it by getting everyone to memorise dates people would stop thinking this.
@@georgerice6488 that's how it's taught in primary school. Very quickly, by secondary school, you already start looking at different interpretations of history.
@@mahfuzurchowdhury2765 That doesn't seem to be the case in US middle(secondary) schools.
@@Mega-Brick ah that's ashame
@@mahfuzurchowdhury2765 Russian schools too, it's all memorising dates and looking at a history from the standpoint that's pushed by the education system, that is backed by the government.
To be honest, I'd say this is a huge testament to integrity. Good on him.
In a world of increasing bluster it is refreshing to find this level of honesty
"As ever, you shouldn't trust me." True, but this statement is exactly why you are trustworthy. Unlike most of our so-called professional media, they just say "trust me," and when they're proven wrong they either sweep it under the rug or label the people with the actual facts as modern day heretics. Your challenge to fact check you and your willingness to say, "I was wrong, here's the information that proves it" is how actual trustworthy media producers should operate. Thank you, Tom.
this right here. this exactly right here.
We can trust him to act in good faith and tell the truth to the best of his abilities, but we can't trust him to always be correct about everything he says in his videos.
legacy media just does issue retractions and corrections all the time in response to them making even minor errors
@@ckbev I'd give that a like - but we all know they put the correction in the small print where the falsehood was in bold
I think the point hes trying to make is never trust a fact on face value, always do your own research or think critically yourself if you want to be sure
Good historians always circle back and correct their mistakes. It's just how qualified professionals operate. Well done, Tom. This video demonstrates wonderfully well that not all information is online. True and thorough historians always utilize actual libraries and repositories, not just online references (which, as this story shows, can be very wrong). Believe it or not, the world is not online.
Right? That’s just how research/science works and I appreciate Tom for doing it.
But if it's online, it must be true. Especially if it's on Twitter.
So much hatrade for the web.. wow.. it's incredible how narrow minded people can be, the issue isn't just "online" the issue is that knowing the truth for 150 years of history isn't easy
Not to mention, as he described plenty here, even what we have now might get muddled, re-intepreted, added to, disproven, proven, so on and so forth.
good historians r archaeologists, who won't rely on written stuff, that could easily be made up, by the "writing class" :P
The only reason I hope for the proof of the phantom time hypothesis. It would put nearly all the blame on historians xD
(there was a harsh rivelry between bookworms, and dirt diggers, at my university, guess u already know what I studied)
That was a very classy update, thanks Tom for being you.
Oh yes! Excellent. Thank you so much for getting this researched (wow!) and doing this video about it. Huge kudos to you, Sir! This story of houses burning if they weren't insured with the right company has bugged me for years if not decades. I had no way of finding out. I loved hearing about this race to the fire and the graduated reward system. That makes a lot of sense. And the three reasons for putting out any fire. Fire in those days was one of the really big disasters that had to be stopped at all costs to save people's lives and livelihoods.
Thank you so much for digging into this, love it!
Everyone's talking about how amazing Tom is for correcting a mistake from 2 years ago, but I'm more impressed that he also used it as an opportunity to make a video about how tricky researching history can be.
And the subtle slap at Republican policies, like "no pay, no spray."
And having a sponsor for the video about his own mistake.
I'm impressed he used the opportunity for clickbait. Wait, no im not.
"Standing on the shoulders of mistaken giants" is a magnificent phrase. I'm going to get that put on a t-shirt.
I thought so, too. I feel like if the human race were to go extinct, you could use it as an epitaph for the whole species.
Merry Christmas Tom, thank you for this!
This is why Tom Scott is and remains of my favorite commenters ever! He could have just done a short a little segment at the end of any video, "Looks like I was wrong in this one video", but he paid someone to do research into it, shares with us that person's findings, and does a whole video on it.
A true truth-seeker, now and always.
Tom is the only youtuber who could turn an apology video into a regular video.
You should check out CGPGrey
@@Fawkes42 what he do now?
@@benjifiji2019 Lost in research somewhere I'm sure, but he was referring to another good correction video he did for TEKOI Test Range
Unforgiven 😡😡😡😡this is 2022 and we cannot tolerate this on the brink of being cancelled
@@vagabundood eh
I appreciate that Tom's willing to revise older videos, and he actually digs to find the truth. Shows his dedication to his work, and it means a lot!
also, pulling the old, still successful video from recommendations while still providing the unlisted video for records.
i wish more youtubers his size had half the integrity and transparency.
More like paying a archives to do so. (I wonder if that person might be a certain Garry Brandan.)
Thanks so much for this update and correction. This is what "doing history" is really like. I plan to share this with my students! Thank You!
Thanks for the update, Tom!
"As ever, you shouldn't trust me." The thing is... we do. We trust you to have the integrity to do the research or to have the research done, to make a correction two years after the fact. Keep doing what you do.
that’s the issue
maybe trust him like 50% but he said it himself
he could be wrong and standing on mistaken giants
I think it's the difference between "I trust your integrity and your intentions" - which Tom has a stellar track record on - and "I trust the absolute correctness of your assertions and advice" - which he is saying not to do, and is good advice.
That's the irony of the phrase "you shouldn't trust me" those that tell you it are demonstrating an uncommon level of honesty, thus trustworthiness by doing so.
I do trust that Tom does his best to present factual information, and I also trust that if that information is later proven to be incorrect, he will let his viewers know.
There is no UA-camr I trust more than him. Nobody does research like him. Nobody comes even close, And not many have the integrity to state their mistakes like Tom Scott.
“History is fractal” is the best explanation for this sort of discussion. The more detailed you get, the harder it is to make clear statements about anything. I’m going to use this line.
A possible interpretation of the recent Nobel experiments is that reality is fractal. Some generous philosophizing and trying to integrate basic laws can get us to, "Reality is a fractal loop of self reference operating on principles of nonlinear complexity and aperiodic determinism". Because it is fractal, there is no answer at the bottom. Because complexity increases in a nonlinear manner, it is not possible to calculate the top using only the pieces beneath it and the rules of the system. There is always more detail, reality cannot be described independently of the description, and emergent systems cannot be described or predicted using the terms of lower levels of complexity. The only perfect description of existence is the act of existing.
Also it goes along the saying "History repeats itself"
just like fractals repeat
Also no cites no evidence
Or maybe history is just HIS STORY (as in narrative feed to us )
@@Clearwater420 ?
I have had UA-cam recommend your vdieos a hand full of times which were all good. But this video alone has convinced me to sub to your videos. The integrity to admit your error AND commit to fixing it is sadly lacking in this world and I want to reward the behavior I like. Cheers to you sir and continue the upstanding work.
This is superb. It's one of those eye-opening videos that flicks a switch in your brain and makes you see something truly profound about what we think we know as human beings. 6 minutes of brilliance, this apology video has taught me an incredible history lesson.
I love how difficult it is to casually describe Horrible Histories without sounding like you're making it up on the spot.
😂😂
A lot of it is probably made up on the spot, not by horrible histories but by somebody down the line of "evidence."
@@thomgizziz One of the HH writers admitted that at least one thing was included because it sounded good even though they knew it wasn't true
Just "the host, a talking rat" is enough to make anyone who's never seen it go "I'm sorry? What did he just say?"
I can't think of any other UA-cam creator so dedicated to owning mistakes, even if they were not originally theirs. "Standing on the shoulders of mistaken giants" is awesome. Nicely done
I love him, but I can think of all the constellation of science UA-camrs that would do just that 🤔
That is such a good phrase!
not a very common trait today. well put bitblt
Dr. Kat from Reading the Past is equally passionate about correcting her mistakes... nice to see these historians with personal integrity!
Check out CGP Grey's video titled CGP Grey was WRONG, best apology video I've ever seen by far.
Herein lies some of the brilliance from Tom.. learning from mistakes, but moreso, correcting references so that others benefit. Bravo.
I really like that you recant errors. I find you even more credible and thorough. Very nice.
This video should be used all over the world as a textbook example of how research should be approached and what science ethics really should be. Hats off to your sir.
This has nothing to do with science... this is just making sure that your sources are reliable and people's ability to recall the past or portray it correctly is nothing but unreliable.
@THOM Gizziz I see where you are coming from, but one of the core traits of the scientific method is using reliable sources (references) to base your own theory and experimentation. In addition, I find it extremely important to maintain a deep belief that no matter how honest and thorough you are, in the end, your science is never complete and sometimes can be utterly mistaken. (Unreliability)
@@thomgizziz You literally just described the problem of believing an individual scientist's results, and why the scientific method exists.
I love how excited Tom is about finding out he made a mistake and rectifying it.
Well, it honestly IS a good thing. He gets a video concept out of the blue, and he gets to use a dramatic title without it actually being clickbait. In addition to that, this helps him build a reputation for rectifyng his mistakes, making him seem more trustworthy.
It's a triple win for him
The algorithm brought this to my attention - this is so interesting, and also so honest and instructive about the study of history. There are so many peddlers of woo-woo history on YT, I am always happy to find stuff I feel confident to rely on.
Cudos for making these “I was wrong” videos! Always warms my heart to see them!
I love how even in a video owning up to a mistake, you still turned it into an engaging narrative story about how history is always more complex than it seems. I wonder if it will ever be possible to fully know every single detail about a situation, given the faults of witness testimony, the lack of accurate detailed records, and the possibility that there could be another perspective you simply haven’t considered
Honestly, part of the reason I wish time travel was real is for things like this. Even if you couldn't actually _change_ anything, it'd be neat to see things for yourself.
I think that we, and everything around us, would have to be monitored at all times to an insufferable degree to even have a chance at being fully aware of every variable in any given situation. Not that I think it's necessary to go beyond the broad strokes in most cases, there are always more questions than answers, that's just life.
Well, you're either gonna need a time machine or a laplacian demon.
I guess in a modern setting some things are under such thorough surveillance that you do have complete records of everything that happened in like a 100x100 meter square somewhere. For historic events though, haha no chance.
@@herowin3825 The ritual for summoning that kind of demon is a real pain though, it's really difficult to get a heretic chicken and 6 candles made from human tallow. 😂
This is why I respect the hell out of you. Some other pop sci channels have quietly taken down videos in response to criticism or false information but never issued a correction. Issuing a public correction undoes the damage and boosts your credibility. Well done.
Not to mention the fact that there wasn't even a controversy here. It was just some guy going "hey, one source changed".
It was such a small mistake, but he hired someone to do weeks of research to correct it, despite nobody asking him to. That's what I find awesome about him.
Not just a correction, he actually hired a professional to research on a topic most sources were getting wrong. Huge respect.
CGB Grey also does correction videos. Not sure if he counts as pop sci tho
100% agree! Well done!
Tom Scott deserves great credit for making this correction. It's honesty like this that can turbo boost your career.
I remember growing up my county was in a battle with the fire departments about pay. For months, we were told the fire fighters would show up to rescue us country folk but not knock down the fire. That was really scary as a kid as I couldn't believe they'd let my house burn. I don't remember any fire calls during this time period thankfully.
As an 18th century firefighter, I appreciate you correcting the record and saving my and my brothers reputations.
Hehehe
The internet needs videos like this more often than we realise. We need constant reminders to think critically and take accountability for what we assume to know. Great video!
Agreed
It’s why I respect Josh Strife Hayes too after his Realm of the Mad God video and its correction
Agreed, make money twice as well!
Thanks for your openness in accepting a mistake and moving on
I imagine there probably were a few cases where insured buildings would get preference and there simply wasn't enough time/resources to put a fire out elsewhere. Probably lead to some people assuming their fire was outright ignored.
Unlikely. The way fires spread in ye olde London, the workforce would have been split and the goals reduced. If the typical goal is to save the building and some of its contents, the "we don't have enough people" goal is to prevent spread. Even on my rural department where the fire escaping to other homes was a minimal concern, we would divide and salvage. Reinforcements can always be recruited.
I really love how you can admit something you shared in the past was wrong and just casually make a correction. There are too many people whose egos are too tied up in it all. This is how education should be. We learn new info, we make corrections and updates, we move on. Thank you!
There was nothing casual about that correction. It was *really* important to Tom to set the record straight. He probably lost sleep over this.
Exactly, just like the facts that masks do very little to stop the spread, the vaccine isn't 100% effective, lock downs were a massive mistake etc ,etc.
Unfortunately no one is queuing up to correct themselves on that.
Yall acting like tom isn just an actor. Like most other ‘youtubers’. Just the face.
@@need2connect its okay grandpa lets get you to bed
@@plica06 probably true, but he also didn’t make it into drama. I’m sure that’s what the other person was referring too.
Given I know Gary Brannan is an archivist, I can fully imagine Tom just going "Hey Gary, there's this thing I might be wrong about, can you check historical archives for me?"
I was kinda disappointed that Gary wasn’t the consultant.
I was fully preparing for it to be Gary lmao
I thought he was gonna say it was Gary, and Gary was gonna come in talking about how long it took, and about how history is a doozy.
So was I but Gary has another job so I guess he couldn't
If it was Gary, we would have never heard the end of it
I really respect when people keep the video up in situations like this.
It's far to common that they just delete it, even though unlisting it is an option and the perfect middle ground.
Hats off to you tom.
Perfect journalistic! Not afraid to admid mistakes and fixing them!!
As an undergraduate studying history right now (and also had a phase in his childhood where he loved firefighters), I cannot thank Tom Scott and Co. enough for commenting on how complex history as a subject of inquiry truly is. Tom is exactly right - History is fractal and never about memorizing dates, not matter what education has taught us. It’s about the continuous interpretation and contextualization of our collective past, lending itself to sometimes new, different, and grander perspectives and understandings about it.
Wonderfully articulated
Have a degree in History and I can't agree more. His quote at 5:00 put a giant smile on my face.
books can also lie, like right now they try to rewrite history, destroy video evidence, delete videos, censor. thats why its important for people to have backup
_History is ... never about memorizing dates, not matter what education has taught us. It’s about the continuous interpretation and contextualization of our collective past, lending itself to ... understandings about it_ - precisamente. And that's why I hated the history classes throughout my school education, even though I'm "generally interested in history" - but of the "why things happened this way and not the other one" sort, NOT "school curriculum style chronicles" going "in the year so and so a certain guy became a king and three years latter he started a war whit that other kingdom, that led to his defeat five years latter" - and nothing about WHY, WHAT FOR or what were "broader circumstances" prompting him do make this or some other decision(s) or take such course of action(s).
History is about as much as about memorizing dates as Geography is about memorizing capitals. It helps you on a pub quiz and that's about it.
"Anyone who tells you they're certain about how the world works is either a Mathematician, or they are selling something." Well said my friend, and it is also a reminder that whenever you find yourself in a situation where some charlatan is trying to sell you something, you can at the very least be grateful that they are not instead a Mathematician.
... I feel like I'm being insulted here...
... Nah, can't be! I guess I'll just go back to solving calculus equations in my head...
No mathematician feels this way. The reason mathematicians love logic and proofs is its the only place you'll get certainly. All mathematicians are well aware of the pitfalls that come with reality.
@@Mikowmer Students solve calculus equations, mathematicians sometimes with basic multiplication
If you're talking to a businessman at least you can say that you're not interested. If you're talking to a mathematician, they can define you to be a pile of dust.
@@OrangeC7 This is also a possibility with certain types of businessmen.
Wow. That clip from Tennessee ( 2:03 ) was an eye-opener. Good for you for catching and correcting a misstatement.
Thanks Tom for owning up, and going the extra steps!!
This, Tom, is why we follow you. When you find out the known facts are wrong *you admit it*. Integrity is hard to find these days.
Oh, come on.
Your intergrity is truly something to look up to. Thank you.
Tom: "Don't trust me"
me: "Are you saying you are... AN IMPOSTER?!?!"
I cannot tell you how much I appreciate the motivation of this video as I'm living in a world of denials and double-downs from politicians, performers, celebrities, influencers and other public figures. Not only did you tag and unlist the video but put up a corrective video after you COMMISSIONED A RESEARCHER to achieve the best answer. Your notations on the evanescence of facts and the ephemeral nature of the human record motivated me to send this link to a local Professional Archivist who approves of this message; they oftentimes find themselves providing material for people sifting through facts to reinforce a foregone conclusion.
“Anyone who tells you how the world works is either a mathematician or they are selling you something” is a genius phrase
Specifically, tells you they're CERTAIN about how the world works. That "certain" part is a very important part of the phrase.
It's so accurate, too. Math is the only real truth.
Unfortunately a lot of the powers that be these days know nether mathematics nor science and it makes them incompetent in a lot of areas.
Left out politicians and preachers, but I suppose they are trying to sell you something.
I love how not only did you correct anything you discovered was inaccurate but how you went on a quest to find out what was actual fact.... You weren't 'wrong', you were honest and upfront and curious enough to go, well if those facts weren't accurate, what the fluff was..... Rocking it!!
It really speaks to your dedication to accuracy that you've done this. Kudos, sir.
Love Tom's honesty and transparency
I expect everyone to be honest and transparent.
@@ajs41 You must live in a state of constant disappointment.
Not just that but the dedication of hiring a professional to prove that he was wrong.
God, I took history as an extra subject in uni this semester and boy is stuff like this funny to me. I respect the people who can go around, search dozens of primary sources that may or may not have been digitised, analyse and scrutinise multiple lengthy secondary source books, journals, and papers, even if at the end of the day, they can't come to a definitive answer.
Here’s the thing: That’s true for all sciences, including natural sciences. The uncertainty might not be as blatant and obvious as in the study of history, but it is there, and you need to have a strategy to deal with it.
@@Schattengewaechs99 yep
This is a great video. Thank you for making it, so rare for people to address their false assumptions or mistaken beliefs. Also, your correction helped me with my mistaken assumption. Again thank you.
Great episode Tom.
Lovely to see excellent (and corrective) research.