READ: Facts and Opinions

Facts

Can you tell a fact from an opinion? Can you tell when an idea follows logically from a fact? Basing ideas on facts is essential to good science. Science is a set of facts, and it is also a set of explanations that are based on those facts. Science relies on facts to explain the natural world.

Facts, Observations, Opinions

Scientists usually begin an investigation with facts. A fact is a bit of information that is true. Facts come from data collected from observations or from experiments that have already been run.Data is factual information that is not subject to opinion or bias.

CK-12 Foundation, Earth Science. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/