 One reason the constructive empiricist’s account of acceptance is important is that it allows us to make sense of scientific anti-realists such as constructive empiricists (of the scientific agnostic variety) talking as if a particular theory is true. When one looks at scientific discourse, this is what scientists are often doing: they treat a theory as if they fully believe it, and answer questions and give explanations using the resources of the theory. The constructive empiricist can account for this behavior, without attributing full belief in the theory to the scientists, by describing the scientists as merely accepting, without fully believing, the theories they develop (van Fraassen 1980, 81–82).