[rayiner]

What people call a “fact” for these purposes is a lot broader than what epistemologically qualifies as a “fact.” You can see this with a lot of “fact checking” websites. The second item on the fact-check.org website is whether reduced wind power caused the Texas electrical outages: https://www.factcheck.org/2021/02/wind-turbines-didnt-cause-...

The percentage drop in window power megawatts is a “fact.” What “caused” the Texas power outage is a multi-variable system analysis that produces a conclusion, not a fact, under certain specified assumptions. (This is obvious to an engineer: the NTSB spends months investigating what “caused” a plane crash, and issues a report with conclusions, not facts. The notion that some journalist can in a day or two perform a similar analysis on a complex system like a power grid, and report the result as a “fact” blinks reality.)