Weight Is Theory Laden

From "How We Know" M & I Goldstein
"Consider the simple sounding statement,'This stone weighs 3 pounds.' There is implied here the acceptance of a whole body of scientific laws and agreed on procedures. Briefly we start with the subjective sensation of heaviness felt by muscles when lifting something. Then we learn by experience that heaviness is an invariant property of most solid things, a stone that was heavy yesterday is heavy today also. This is a primitive statement of an important principle: the conservation of mass. Next we establish a criterion of equality on 'heaviness' by constructing a balance to compare weights. we are now introducing the [experiential] concepts of the lever. We note the equally 'heavy' things as judged by our muscles placed at equal distances from the central pivot of our lever tend to balance. Then we choose one object as a standard and call it say 1 pound. Then we define [further] a weight of 2 pounds as anything that balances two 1 pound objects placed together on one side of the scale, and so forth. There is a lot of physics in the statement 'This stone wieghts 3 pounds". That it really weights 3 pounds is a [consensually validated or also called] objective fact verifiable by any obvserver who wants to do so, but it is too man-made. It didn't exist until we invented it. This feature of facts is often described by saying taht facts are 'theory laden'."