True Facts - and not

I view true fact as a retronym, like acoustic guitar or black-and-white television -- and maybe soon non-HD TV, maybe LDTV(?).

While once facts were all true our culture has developed the need to assert pointedly when that is the case. The simple word fact has come to mean only a statement of fact, ie. a declaration intended to be taken as true but whose actual truth is uncertain.

So when you hear true fact realize that we, like Dorothy, are not in black-and-white Kansas anymore.

Ditto on the retronym, but there's a deeper dispute in science concerning Fact and Theory.  

Traditionally a Fact is a careful and quantitative observation of Nature.   For instance, a local temperature measured at a consistent time each day, using properly calibrated thermometers, with proper attention paid to baseline conditions and contaminants.  

Traditionally a Theory is a logical rule or a mathematical formula, offered as a way to relate a particular set of Facts.   If the Theory appears to work well on present Facts, you try to predict the next set of Facts.   If the predictions are in the right direction but slightly off, you try to adjust the formula.   If the predictions are bad, or if no adjustment works consistently, you discard the Theory and start over.

Modern pseudoscientists, such as the Gaian zealots, are remolding the meaning of Fact to mean "a Theory that lots of people believe."   This enables them to silence dissent, because everyone says "You're entitled to your own opinions but you're not entitled to your own Facts."

Plenty here. (Don't mean there can't be any more.)

Ditto on the retronym, but there's a deeper dispute in science concerning Fact and Theory.  

Traditionally a Fact is a careful and quantitative observation of Nature.   For instance, a local temperature measured at a consistent time each day, using properly calibrated thermometers, with proper attention paid to baseline conditions and contaminants.  

Traditionally a Theory is a logical rule or a mathematical formula, offered as a way to relate a particular set of Facts.   If the Theory appears to work well on present Facts, you try to predict the next set of Facts.   If the predictions are in the right direction but slightly off, you try to adjust the formula.   If the predictions are bad, or if no adjustment works consistently, you discard the Theory and start over.

Modern pseudoscientists, such as the Gaian zealots, are remolding the meaning of Fact to mean "a Theory that lots of people believe."   This enables them to silence dissent, because everyone says "You're entitled to your own opinions but you're not entitled to your own Facts."