Editing Pseudohistory (section)

==Definition and etymology==
The term ''pseudohistory'' was coined in the early nineteenth century, which makes the word older than the related terms ''[[wikt:pseudo-scholarship|pseudo-scholarship]]'' and ''[[wikt:pseudo-science|pseudoscience]]''.<ref>
Monthly magazine and British register, Volume 55 (February 1823), [https://books.google.com/books?id=q00oAAAAYAAJ&q=pseudo-history&pg=PA449 p. 449],  in reference to John Galt, ''Ringan Gilhaize:  Or, The Covenanters'', Oliver & Boyd, 1823.[https://archive.org/details/ringangilhaizeo09galtgoog]</ref> In an attestation from 1815, it is used to refer to the ''[[Contest of Homer and Hesiod]]'', a purportedly historical narrative describing an entirely fictional contest between the Greek poets [[Homer]] and [[Hesiod]].<ref>C. A. Elton, ''Remains of Hesiod the Ascraean'' 1815, [https://books.google.com/books?id=RcxfAAAAMAAJ&q=pseudo-history&pg=PR19 p. xix].</ref> The pejorative sense of the term, labelling a flawed or disingenuous work of historiography, is found in another 1815 attestation.<ref>''The Critical review: or, Annals of literature'', Volume 1 ed. Tobias George Smollett, 1815, [https://books.google.com/books?id=EsUPAAAAQAAJ&q=pseudo-history&pg=PA152 p. 152]</ref> Pseudohistory is akin to pseudoscience in that both forms of falsification are achieved using the methodology that purports to, but does not, adhere to the established standards of research for the given field of intellectual enquiry of which the pseudoscience claims to be a part, and which offers little or no supporting evidence for its plausibility.<ref name="Fritze">{{cite book|last=Fritze|first=Ronald H.|date=2009|title=Invented Knowledge: False History, Fake Science and Pseudo-Religions|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=l2BrqdFg5AkC&q=Pseudohistory|location=London|publisher=Reaktion Books|isbn=978-1-86189-430-4}}</ref>{{rp|7–18}}

Writers [[Michael Shermer]] and [[Alex Grobman]] define pseudohistory as "the rewriting of the past for present personal or political purposes".<ref name="Shermer">{{cite book|last1=Shermer|first1=Michael|last2=Grobman|first2=Alex|title=Denying History: Who Says the Holocaust Never Happened and Why Do They Say It?|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uACijKy-cbgC&q=Holocaust+denial+pseudohistory&pg=PA237|location=Oakland|publisher=University of California Press|date=2009|isbn=978-0-520-26098-6}}</ref>{{rp|2}} Other writers take a broader definition; Douglas Allchin, a historian of science, contends that when the history of scientific discovery is presented in a simplified way, with drama exaggerated and scientists romanticized, this creates wrong stereotypes about how science works, and in fact constitutes pseudohistory, despite being based on real facts.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Allchin|first=D.|date=2004|url=http://www.tc.umn.edu/~allch001/papers/pseudo.pdf|title=Pseudohistory and pseudoscience|volume=1|journal=Science & Education|issue=13|pages=179–195|doi=10.1023/B:SCED.0000025563.35883.e9|bibcode=2004Sc&Ed..13..179A|s2cid=7378302|access-date=2007-02-20|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080512082518/http://www.tc.umn.edu/~allch001/papers/pseudo.pdf|archive-date=2008-05-12|url-status=dead}}</ref>