  The idea of evidence as a kind of ultimate court of appeal, uniquely qualified to generate agreement among those who hold rival theories, is a highly plausible one. Nevertheless, complications with this simple picture—some more serious than others—abound. Above, we took note of the widely-held view according to which the bearing of a given piece of evidence on a given hypothesis depends on considerations of background theory. Thus, two individuals who hold different background theories might disagree about how strongly a particular piece of evidence confirms a given theory, or indeed, about whether the evidence confirms the theory at all. Of course, if the question of who has the superior background theory is itself susceptible to rational adjudication, then this possibility need pose no deep threat to objectivity. Often enough, this will be the case. Suppose, for example, that you treat the fact that 