Kaiser Josef Wrote Don Giovanni Syndrome (Phil Paine): we often give rulers credit for things that just happened when they were alive. If you asked the oligarchs of any declining place, they will tell you that they and their ancestors were the source of all wealth and creativity, when in fact the elites took over as the growth and newness were

Incorrect Premises: many people’s beliefs about the past are rooted in false assumptions, such as assuming that riding a horse was as convenient as driving a car or of course there were nonpartisan, impersonal courts following formal procedures with jurisdiction over everyone or obviously everyone was either superstitious and ignorant or a liberal

Big Data Can be Bad Data (Michael E. Smith): Putting math in it does not make it science if the numbers were made

Argumentative Theory of Reason (Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber): You cannot reason someone out of a position which they did not reason themselves in to, yet hearing other views helps you develop your own. If we were always as cautious and unsure as the evidence warrants, little ancient history would be written!

Nirvana Fallacy: just because something has a flaw does not mean that its useless.

Friedman’s Law of Anecdotes (2010) “Distrust any historical anecdote good enough to have survived on its literary merit” http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/2010/09/sceptical-rule-of-thumb.html

Defensiveness: its embarrassing to be wrong in public, so once you have publicly committed to a position its hard to change your mind.

Research Incumbency Rule: “Once an article is published in some approved venue, it is taken as truth. Criticisms which would absolutely derail a submission in pre-publication review can be brushed aside if they are presented after publication. This is what you call ‘the burden of proof on critics.'”

Partisanship: many people much of the time are more interested in supporting their faction than finding the truth. Many of the customs of science were created to keep debates from becoming dominated by parties outside of science, but parties within science can emerge (eg. debates about the Anglo-Saxon migration into Britain).