section_path: Foundational principles/Theory's interactions with observation
section_name: Theory's interactions with observation
paragraph_text: Theory's interactions with observation
  
  Science has limits. Those limits are usually deemed to be answers to questions that aren't in science's domain, such as faith. Science has other limits as well, as it seeks to make true statements about reality. The nature of truth and the discussion on how scientific statements relate to reality is best left to the article on the philosophy of science here. More immediately topical limitations show themselves in the observation of reality.
  
  It is the natural limitations of scientific inquiry that there is no pure observation as theory is required to interpret empirical data, and observation is therefore influenced by the observer's conceptual framework. As science is an unfinished project, this does lead to difficulties. Namely, that false conclusions are drawn, because of limited information.
  
  An example here are the experiments of Kepler and Brahe, used by Hanson to illustrate the concept. Despite observing the same sunrise the two scientists came to different conclusions—their intersubjectivity leading to differing conclusions. Johannes Kepler used Tycho Brahe 's method of observation, which was to project the image of the Sun on a piece of paper through a pinhole aperture, instead of looking directly at the Sun. He disagreed with Brahe's conclusion that total eclipses of the Sun were impossible because, contrary to Brahe, he knew that there were historical accounts of total eclipses. Instead, he deduced that the images taken would become more accurate, the larger the aperture—this fact is now fundamental for optical system design. Another historic example here is the discovery of Neptune, credited as being found via mathematics because previous observers didn't know what they were looking at.