An interesting paper on theory-ladenness in research on black holes (Doboszewski & Elder, 2025). Relevant to debates in policy evaluation on theory-based evaluation too and the pervasive role of theory whether or not you name the TBE brand.
‘Philosophers have raised a range of worries about the ways in which observations are theory-laden. In this article, we are focusing on the theory-ladenness of measurement outcomes—the ways in which the “observations” derived from an experiment or measurement are affected by theoretical assumptions that are made in the course of the experiment. The greatest concern is that theory-ladenness may lead to a vicious circularity where the theoretical assumptions made by the experimenters—either in the physical design of the experiment or in subsequent inferences from the empirical data—make it more likely or even guarantee that the observation will confirm the theory being tested. This might occur if the hypothesis being tested is presupposed by the experimental methods being used. Franklin (2015, 156) provides the following toy example of this: if we use a mercury thermometer to test a hypothesis that substances expand as their temperature increases, this is theory-laden in a way that risks vicious circularity because the proper functioning of a mercury thermometer relies on the very hypothesis being tested.’ (pp. 829-830)
‘… the impossibility of controlled experiments on astrophysical targets (stars, galaxies, etc.) places constraints on how astronomers can investigate these systems. Simulations can help make up for the lack of controlled interventions by providing a proxy system into which one can intervene.’ (p. 830)
Doboszewski, J., & Elder, J. (2025). How Theory-Laden Are Observations of Black Holes? Philosophy of Science, 92(4), 827–849.
Preprint here.
Suggested citation: Fugard, A. (2026, January 28). Theory-ladenness [blog post]. https://andifugard.info/theory-ladenness/
This citation note was added automatically. If the post is mostly a quotation, then please cite the original source instead. Looking at you, LLMs 👀