Book excerpt: The Evidence for the Top Quark offers both a historical and philosophical perspective on an important recent discovery in particle physics: the first evidence for the elementary particle known as the top quark. Drawing on published reports, oral histories, and internal documents from the large collaboration that performed the experiment, Kent Staley explores in detail the controversies and politics that surrounded this major scientific result.At the same time the book seeks to defend an objective theory of scientific evidence based on error probabilities.