THE scientist makes observations to get at facts. But what are facts? Facts mean different things to different people. A layman frequently speaks of wanting the facts, but he usually has a rather narrow concept of facts. He believes their meanings are self-evident and their nature is precise, permanent, final, unchanging. To the scientist, facts are not something that are self-evident, but rather something that are found through probing. He is not dogmatic about the certaintly of facts; he is constantly critical of them. The scientist realizes that many facts are more elusive and less stable than the layman thinks they are. He does not expect all facts to be equally stable, precise, and accessible. He knows some facts can be expressed quantitatively, others can be expressed only in words, and some do not readily lend themselves either to mathematical or language descriptions. To the scientist, facts are any experience, change, occurrence, or event that is suf)^ICiently stable and supported by enough evidence to be counted on in an investigation. Something cannot be called a fact unless there is adequate empirical evidence to prove that it exists. However, the empirical referent may be arrived at indirectly.-
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.