“Many persons seem to suppose,” said John Dewey long ago, “that facts carry their meaning along with themselves on their face. Accumulate enough of them, and their interpretation stares out at you.” This is not the case. “No one is ever forced by just the collection of facts to accept a particular theory of their meaning, so long as one retains intact some other doctrine by which he can marshal them.” Moreover, when it comes to the issues at the heart of current debates, to call them “facts” is an abuse of language. They are estimates, models, predictions, forecasts, guidelines, points on a
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