Anyone who has attempted to comprehend the book Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact (students of Rowan University’s wec class take note) will appreciate the astonishment I experienced when I found myself actually using it in real life.
The other day I held a conference with a student in my research writing class. The student, a history major, was writing on the topic of the JFK assassination. She had just read a book on the subject that she liked very much and was about to fall into the tempting trap of paraphrasing the author’s argument rather than crafting one of her own using a variety of sources.
The student showed me the book and told me she didn’t need to pursue any other sources from the databases because the book was so thorough. She explained that it summed up all the theories involved and was filled with all the “facts” she needed.
Thinking back to Fleck, I said, “There are some who would argue that there is no such thing as a fact.”
