The Theory - Ladenness of Observation and the Theory - Ladenness of the Rest of the Scientific Process

We use evidence from cognitive psychology and the history of science to examine the issue of the theory-ladenness of perceptual observation. This evidence shows that perception is theory-laden, but that it is only strongly theory-laden when the perceptual evidence is ambiguous or degraded, or when it requires a difficult perceptual judgment. We argue that debates about the theory-laden issue have focused too narrowly on the issue of perceptual experience and that a full account of the scientific process requires an examination of the theory-laden issue in attention, perception, data interpretation, data production, memory, and scientific communication. We conclude that the evidence for theory-ladenness does not lead to a relativist account of scientific knowledge.