Of course there are facts. A fact is just a reliable observation. Science and engineering couldn't exist without reliable observations. I don't think facts are

Of course there are facts. A fact is just a reliable observation. Science and engineering couldn't exist without reliable observations. I don't think facts are necessarily objective, because we don't have access to the levels of absolute omniscience required to know whether or not an observation is absolute for all qualified observers. Even so. Facts remain persistent for us, and that's good enough for many useful things. The article is just reiterating the difference between science and rhetoric. Science is not particularly persuasive because it's difficult, it requires special skills and knowledge, and leading edge research is always tentative, by definition. Rhetoric is persuasive by definition, because it has been engineered to be persuasive. Lawyers buy books which teach them how to craft persuasive arguments. Veracity is not required, and may be deprecated. It's a completely different process. The problem is that STEM-trained types do not understand this. Because so much STEM argument is about data and credible interpretations, STEM types are always blindsided whenever an opportunist/charlatan/crook turns up spewing obvious bullshit, but somehow still manages to take the public with them. The solution is to educate STEM people about rhetoric. Tribalism is just one aspect of it. There are many others.