... if evidence is never independent and is only evidence within the precincts of a particular theory, “adherents of rival theories,” Kelly explains, “will irremediably differ as to the appropriate description of the data itself,” and agreement between them cannot be brought about by simply pointing to the data.
Indeed, the phrase “data itself” — data independent of any theory currently in place — will be without a sense. Nor can any sense be given to the claim that because scientific conclusions must “stand up to scrutiny” (Jan), they enjoy a superior status. Scrutiny, like evidence, is something that occurs within a theory and will have a theory-specific shape. Scrutiny is not a practice that escapes or corrects the boundaries of perspective; it is a feature of a perspective it cannot transcend.
- Ur Stanley Fish krönika Evidence in Science and Religion, Part Two
Fides quaerens intellectum.
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