ABSTRACT
The belief that science proceeds from observation to theory is still so widely and so firmly held that my denial of it is often met with incredulity. I am even … accused of denying what nobody in his senses can doubt. But in fact the belief that we can start with pure observations alone, without anything in the nature of a theory, is absurd. Observation is always selective. It needs a chosen object, a definite task, an interest, a point of view, a problem. And its description presupposes a descriptive language, with property words; it presupposes interests, points of view and problems.
