In the philosophy of science, Popper, Kuhn, and their schools denied that observational evidence could make scientific theories more probable, and attention in the field moved to sociological and other nonevidential influences.4 Postmodernism, presuming rather than arguing for the absence of objective methods of evaluating theories, offered a number of other reasons—or rather causes—of actual beliefs, such as the demands of “power.”5 The situation is not so bad in law, which has largely retained a commitment to the objectivity of evidence, but even there, theory is not as robust as practice.
