Reading a book by David Wooton on « The Invention of science« . In chapter 7, the author analyses the emergence of the notion of facts as an important step towards modern science. We take it so much for granted that we cannot imagine a world without facts. Yet it did exist. And we are today at risk of stepping backward.
Before facts? Sometimes reason, sometimes experience, often authority (faith) prevailed. Contradict an established truth was extremely difficult, as knowledge was built by relation of ideas and by relying on prevalent beliefs.
With facts? Hume, cited by Wooton, said: « There is no reasoning … against matter of fact ». When a fact is established, it simply is. It allows Kepler to develop a brand new approach to planetary motion. Facts, of course, can be disestablished by experience, or rather they « simply cease to be » when discovered to be false.
What is a fact? According to Wooton, they are at the same time « the reality » and « statements about reality ». Facts are therefore « not just true or false; they can be confirmed by an appeal to evidence ». The statement « I believe in God » is not a fact, as it is inherently subjective, while the statement « I have been baptized » describes a fact, as I can issue evidence that proves it.
Science and facts are « made for each other »; they were both inventions of the 16-17th centuries and allowed mankind to progress. A world without facts seems unconceivable. We « mass-produce facts ».
Paradoxically facts are today at risk. The hardly understandable and unforgivable rise of conspiracy theories, negationism, creationism, the mistrust if not the disbelief in science, is built on the rejection of facts and the construction of pseudo-knowledges based on a corpus of web-published so-called authorities.