Does data show or tell?

Hutton and other scientist need to show that observation doesn't come with data that tell scientist what to think. Teachers and textbooks have previous information of the event and can tell us that it is really true, but most scientist have discovered these occurance of the world without anything to start from. Observation was the data that they gain. The data that had from those observations didn't tell them or show them the whole truth behind it. They had to figure it out on their own and try to answer it as best as they can. That is why famous scientist like Ptomely and Aristotle had said these things that were completey wrong. They had made the obseravtions their discovery and tell us these things without anything to support it, and they also didn't tell us why.