Objectivity (science)
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Objectivity in science is the property of scientific theories to make unequivocal predictions that can be tested independent from the the individual scientist (the subject) who proposes them. It is intimately related to the aim of reproducibility. To be properly considered objective, the relevant theory, hypothesis, assertion or proposition must be able to be communicated from person-to-person, and then demonstrated for third parties, as an advance in understanding of the objective world. Such demonstrable knowledge would ordinarily confer demonstrable powers of prediction or technological construction.
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[edit] Objectivity in measurement
To avoid the variety in subjective (equivocal) interpretation of quantifying terms such as "large", "considerable", and "negligible", scientists strive, where possible, to eliminate human senses by use of standartized measuring tools and mechanical measuring instruments for performing the actual measuring process, eliminating much of the perceptive variability of individual observers. The results of measurements are expressed on a numerical scale of standard units - so that everybody else understands them the same way. Where nominal data must need be used, the ideal is to use "hard", "objective" criteria for assigning the classifications (see Operational definition), such that different classifiers would produce the same assignments.
[edit] Objectivity in experimental set-up and interpretation
Another methodological aspect is the avoidance of bias, which can involve cognitive bias and cultural bias, but also sampling bias. Methods for avoiding or overcoming such bias include random sampling and double-blind trials.
[edit] Deliberate falsification
Next to unintentional but possibly systematic error, there is always the possibility of deliberate falsification of scientific results, whether for gain, for fame, or for ideological motives. When such cases of scientific fraud come to light, they usually give rise to an academic scandal, but it is (obviously) not known how much fraud goes undiscovered. However, for results that are considered important, other groups will try to repeat the experiment and fail, bringing these negative results into the scientific debate.
[edit] The role of the scientific community
Various scientific processes, such as peer reviews, the discussions at scientific conferences and other meetings where results are presented, and the efforts at replicating results, all are part of a social process whose purpose is to strengthen the objective aspect of the scientific method.
[edit] Philosophical problems with scientific objectivity
Based on a historical review of the development of certain scientific theories, in his book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions historian Thomas Kuhn raised some philosophical objections to claims of the possibility of scientific understanding being truly objective. In Kuhn's analysis, scientists in different disciplines organise themselves into de facto paradigms, within which scientific research is done, junior scientists are educated, and scientific problems are determined. The implicit social hierarchy of a scientific paradigm ensures that only scientists who are thoroughly immersed in the intellectual construction of the paradigm acquire the reputation and status to pronounce authoritatively on matters of dispute, and those scientists have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo (which confers on them this de facto position of authority).
When observational data arises which appears to contradict or "falsify" a given scientific paradigm, scientists within that paradigm have not, historically, immediately rejected the paradigm in question (as Sir Karl Popper's philosophical theory of falsificationism would have them do) but have gone to considerable lengths to resolve the apparent conflict without rejecting the paradigm, through ad hoc variations to the theory, sympathetic interpretations of the data which allow for assimilation, determination that the "conundrum" the data was obtained to explain in the first place is misconceived, or in extreme cases simply ignoring the data altogether (for example, on the basis of the lack of scientific credentials of its source).
Thus, Kuhn argues, the failure of a scientific revolution is not an objectively measurable, deterministic event, but a far more contingent shift in social order. A paradigm will go into a crisis when a significant portion of the scientists working in the field lose confidence in the paradigm, regardless of their reasons for doing so. The corollary of this observation is that the primacy of a given paradigm is similarly contingent on the social order amongst scientists at the time it gains ascendancy.
Kuhn's theory has been criticised (by Richard Dawkins and Alan Sokal, among others) as presenting a profoundly relativist view of scientific progress. In a postscript to the third edition of his book, Kuhn denied being a relativist.
[edit] Literature
- Dawkins, Richard (2003): A Devil’s Chaplain: Selected Essays, Phoenix 2004
- Kuhn, Thomas (1962): The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, University of Chicago Press, 3rd Ed., 1996
- Porter, Theodore M. (1995): Trust in Numbers: The Pursuit of Objectivity in Science and Public Life, Princeton University Press, 1995
- Restivo, Sal (1994): Science, Society, and Values: Toward a Sociology of Objectivity, Lehigh University Press, 1994.
- Sokal, Alan & Bricmont, Jean (1997): Intellectual Impostures: Postmodern Philosophers’ Abuse of Science, Profile Books, 2003
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