Observation is the deliberate act of noting what happens, by eye or by instrument, that supplies the raw material every other concept on this atlas works on: a hypothesis has nothing to predict against, and a theory nothing to be tested by, without it. It is the oldest and least formalised of this atlas's concept entries, no single person or year credited with proposing it, but it is not the simple, theory-free foundation it is sometimes taken to be; what counts as a relevant observation, and how a given reading is described, is already shaped by the observer's existing assumptions, the complication this atlas's own theory-ladenness entry addresses directly.
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Associated With
Francis Bacon's Novum Organum (1620) placed systematic empirical observation, rather than authority or pure reason, at the center of the scientific method.
Theory-ladenness is the thesis that scientific observation is shaped by prior theoretical commitment
Belongs To
Source Observation (Wikipedia)
Studied In
Sources
Theory and Observation in Science (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophySection 1, IntroductionQuote, Section 1, Introduction
All observations and uses of observational evidence are theory laden in this sense.
Observation (Wikipedia)
Belongs To: Philosophy of Science, Lead, sentence 1Quote, Belongs To: Philosophy of Science, Lead, sentence 1
Observation in the natural sciences refers to the active acquisition of information from a primary source.
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