If ghosts and witches are not yet altogether exploded, it is the fault, not so much of the ignorant people, as of the law and the government that hav… - Mordechai Ben-Ari

It is important to distinguish between the scientific concept of law as a generalization, and the social concept of law which is prescriptive and normative. A desire for tolerance in respecting the laws of different social systems must not lead us into the mistake of attributing volition to the entities of science or relativism to scientific laws.

Just because people doing science are embedded in a particular social and cultural milieu, it doesn’t follow that science is not universal.

We can define a fact as an observation backed up by such a preponderance of evidence that no useful purpose would be served by doubting it.