In my Science Methods class today, we spent much of our time discussing the difference between "facts" and "truth." This feels so germane to so many issues in culture today that it was really something I wanted to talk about--and, serendipitously, it was on the syllabus for today anyway.I'm using a text by John Mays entitled Teaching Science so that Students Learn Science, and chapter 2 of the book is entitled "Truth and Facts." In this chapter, Mays is really talking about science as a way of knowing about the world. And there are definitely different ways of knowing! Mays emphasizes that science is about developing an empirical understanding of the world--the facts, we might say.
Here are his working definitions for "truth" and "facts": (from p. 17 of the book)
Truth: A proposition that is true for all times, all places, and all people. Truths never change. We know truths by revelation or first hand testimony.
Fact: A proposition that is supported by substantial experimental or observational evidence (data), and which is correct as far as we know. Facts can change as new data and information become known. We know facts by observation and experiment, or by making inferences from our observations and experimental results.
How does that sound to you? Are these helpful definitions?
