There is no such thing as a direct observation of the world. All of the observations we make of the world depend on theories about the information perceived through our senses.
[Empricists](Empiricism.md) say that all of our knowledge comes from what we observe about the world. In a sense they are right—we must have some basis of testing theories against our observations to determine accuracy—but it is also incomplete. [Empiricists](Empiricism), at least those expounding the theories during the enlightenment period, believed we can _directly_ test our theories when this is in fact not the case. It always requires *additional theories* from which to extract observations during our experiments.
One example of a theory-laden observation is found in the story of the discovery of Neptune. This is part of the reason that [[Neptune's discovery is the epitome of science]].
When many disparate theories come together to corroborate their explanations of reality, and none are falsified ([[Good Scientific Theories Must be Falsifiable]]), this constitutes the confidence scientists have of their correctness.
Over time, I predict that humans will continue to update, refine, and reuse existing *good* theories in addition to inventing new ones to control the universe with greater precision; [[Scientific theories are powerful]]. [[In good explanations, all details play a functional role in their explanatory power]].
# Relevant Texts
* [[The Logic of Scientific Discovery]]
* [[The Beginning of Infinity]]
# Related Topics
* [[Duhem–Quine Thesis]]
# Relevant Philosophers
* [[Karl Popper]]
* [[David Deutsch]]
* [[Pierre Duhem]]
* [[Willard Van Orman Quine]]