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Concept
Fact
Summary
A fact is a true datum about one or more aspects of a circumstance. Standard reference works are often used to check facts. Scientific facts are verified by repeatable careful observation or measurement by experiments or other means.
For example, "This sentence contains words." accurately describes a linguistic fact, and "The sun is a star" accurately describes an astronomical fact. Further, "Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States" and "Abraham Lincoln was assassinated" both accurately describe historical facts. Generally speaking, facts are independent of belief and of knowledge and opinion.
Facts are different from inferences, theories, values, and objects.
The word fact derives from the Latin factum. It was first used in English with the same meaning: "a thing done or performed" a meaning now obsolete. The common usage of "something that has really occurred or is the case" dates from the mid-16th century.
Barbara J. Shapiro wrote in her book A Culture of Fact how the concept of a fact evolved, starting within the English legal tradition of the 16th century.
In 1870, Charles Sanders Peirce described in his book "The Fixation of Belief" four methods which people use to decide what they should believe: tenacity, method of authority, a priori and scientific method.
The term fact also indicates a matter under discussion deemed to be true or correct, such as to emphasize a point or prove a disputed issue; (e.g., "... the fact of the matter is ...").
Alternatively, fact may also indicate an allegation or stipulation of something that may or may not be a true fact, (e.g., "the author's facts are not trustworthy"). This alternate usage, although contested by some, has a long history in standard English according to the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language. The Oxford English Dictionary dates this use to 1729.
Fact may also indicate findings derived through a process of evaluation, including review of testimony, direct observation, or otherwise; as distinguishable from matters of inference or speculation.
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Scientific laws or laws of science are statements, based on repeated experiments or observations, that describe or predict a range of natural phenomena. The term law has diverse usage in many cases (approximate, accurate, broad, or narrow) across all fields of natural science (physics, chemistry, astronomy, geoscience, biology). Laws are developed from data and can be further developed through mathematics; in all cases they are directly or indirectly based on empirical evidence.
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