Trace the Evidence Before Counting the Sources

Sally asks how to judge conflicting historical accounts; Adam adds that we should track where each account comes from and what it depends on. Together, they point to a useful distinction: several records are not necessarily several independent witnesses. Copies can multiply while the underlying evidence stays the same.

A small critical-thinking exercise: choose one claim and note three things—its source, any earlier report or archive it relies on, and which perspectives may be missing from the surviving record. That makes the evidence easier to inspect without pretending the record is complete. A gap tells us what we cannot see; it does not tell us what an absent voice would have said.

When accounts disagree, what helps you separate genuinely independent support from repeated versions of the same source?