Editing Consilience (section)

==In history==
Historical evidence also converges in an analogous way. For example: if five ancient historians, none of whom knew each other, all claim that [[Julius Caesar]] seized power in Rome in 49 BCE, this is strong evidence in favor of that event occurring even if each individual historian is only partially reliable. By contrast, if the same historian had made the same claim five times in five different places (and no other types of evidence were available), the claim is much weaker because it originates from a single source. The evidence from the ancient historians could also converge with evidence from other fields, such as archaeology: for example, evidence that many senators fled Rome at the time, that the battles of [[Caesar’s civil war]] occurred, and so forth.

Consilience has also been discussed in reference to [[Holocaust denial]]. 
{{Blockquote|"We [have now discussed] eighteen proofs all converging on one conclusion...the deniers shift the burden of proof to historians by demanding that ''each'' piece of evidence, independently and without corroboration between them, prove the Holocaust. Yet no historian has ever claimed that one piece of evidence proves the Holocaust. We must examine the collective whole."<ref name="Shermer" />}}

That is, individually the evidence may underdetermine the conclusion, but together they overdetermine it. A similar way to state this is that to ask for one ''particular'' piece of evidence in favor of a conclusion is a flawed question.<ref name="SciAm"/><ref name="Shermer2">{{cite book|first=Michael|last= Shermer|year=2002|title=In Darwin's Shadow: The Life and Science of Alfred Russel Wallace|page=[https://archive.org/details/indarwinsshadowl0000sher/page/319 319]|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn= 978-0-19-514830-5|url=https://archive.org/details/indarwinsshadowl0000sher|url-access=registration}}</ref>