View source for Objectivity (science)

{{About|the concept of objectivity as it is used in science||Objectivity (disambiguation)}}
{{short description|Type of attempt to uncover truths}}
[[File:Science,_Technology_and_Engineering.jpg | thumb | right]]
In [[science]], '''objectivity''' refers to attempts to do higher quality [[research]] by eliminating personal [[bias]]es, emotions, and false beliefs, while focusing mainly on proven [[Fact|facts]] and [[evidence]].<ref name="Daston Galison Objectivity">{{cite book|url=http://www.zonebooks.org/titles/DAST_OBJ.html|title=Objectivity|publisher=Zone Books|author1=Daston, Lorraine|author2=Galison, Peter|year=2010|isbn=9781890951795|access-date=2015-07-23|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170522201411/http://www.zonebooks.org/titles/DAST_OBJ.html|archive-date=2017-05-22|url-status=dead}}</ref> It is often linked to [[Observation#Science|observation]] as part of the [[scientific method]]. It is thus intimately related to the aim of [[testability]] and [[reproducibility]]. To be considered objective, the results of measurement must be communicated from person to person, and then {{em|demonstrated}} for third parties, as an advance in a [[consensus reality|collective understanding]] of the world. Such demonstrable knowledge has ordinarily conferred demonstrable powers of prediction or technology.

The problem of [[objectivity (philosophy)|philosophical objectivity]] is contrasted with personal [[subjectivity]], sometimes exacerbated by the [[scientific consensus|overgeneralization]] of a hypothesis to the whole. For example, [[Newton's law of universal gravitation]] appears to be the norm for the attraction between [[astronomical object|celestial bodies]], but it was later refined and extended—and philosophically superseded—by the more general [[theory of relativity]].

==History==
The [[scientific method]] was argued for by [[Age of Enlightenment|Enlightenment]] philosopher [[Francis Bacon]], rose to popularity with the discoveries of [[Isaac Newton]] and his followers, and continued into later eras. In the early eighteenth century, there existed an [[Epistemology|epistemic]] virtue in science which has been called ''truth-to-nature''.<ref name="Daston Galison Objectivity" />{{rp|55–58}} This ideal was practiced by Enlightenment [[Natural history|naturalists]] and scientific atlas-makers, and involved active attempts to eliminate any idiosyncrasies in their representations of nature in order to create images thought best to represent "what truly is".<ref name="Daston Galison Objectivity" />{{rp|59–60}}<ref name="Representations">{{cite journal | url=http://www.nyu.edu/classes/bkg/methods/daston.pdf | title=The Image of Objectivity |author1=Daston, Lorraine |author2=Galison, Peter | journal=Representations |date=Autumn 1992  | issue=40 | pages=81–128 | doi=10.2307/2928741| jstor=2928741 }}</ref>{{rp|84–85}} Judgment and skill were deemed necessary in order to determine the "typical", "characteristic", "ideal", or "average".<ref name="Representations" />{{rp|87}} In practicing, truth-to-nature naturalists did not seek to depict exactly what was seen; rather, they sought a reasoned image.<ref name="Daston Galison Objectivity" />{{rp|98}}

In the latter half of the nineteenth-century, objectivity in science was born when a new practice of ''mechanical objectivity'' appeared.<ref name="Daston Galison Objectivity" />{{rp|121}} {{"'}}Let nature speak for itself' became the watchword of a new brand of scientific objectivity."<ref name="Representations" />{{rp|81}} It was at this time that idealized representations of nature, which were previously seen as a virtue, were now seen as a vice.<ref name="Daston Galison Objectivity" />{{rp|120}} Scientists began to see it as their duty to actively restrain themselves from imposing their own projections onto nature.<ref name="Representations" />{{rp|81}} The aim was to liberate representations of nature from subjective, human interference and in order to achieve this [[scientists]] began using self-registering instruments, cameras, wax molds, and other technological devices.<ref name="Daston Galison Objectivity" />{{rp|121}}

In the twentieth century ''trained judgment''<ref name="Daston Galison Objectivity" />{{rp|309}} supplemented mechanical objectivity as scientists began to recognize that, in order for images or data to be of any use, scientists needed to be able to see scientifically; that is, to interpret images or data and identify and group them according to particular professional training, rather than to simply depict them mechanically.<ref name="Daston Galison Objectivity" />{{rp|311–314}} Since the latter half of the nineteenth century, objectivity has come to involve a combination of trained judgment and mechanical objectivity.

==Objectivity in measurement==
Another methodological aspect is the avoidance of bias, which can involve [[cognitive bias]], [[cultural bias]], or [[sampling bias]]. Methods for avoiding or overcoming such biases include [[random sampling]] and [[double-blind]] trials.<ref name="O'Leary2004">{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ItKeqNfgNW0C&q=objectivity+in+sampling,+random+sampling&pg=PA1|title=The Essential Guide to Doing Research|last=O'Leary|first=Zina|date=2004-06-09|publisher=SAGE Publications|isbn=9780761941996|language=en}}</ref> However, objectivity in measurement can be unobtainable in certain circumstances. Even the most quantitative social sciences such as [[economics]] employ measures that are constructs (conventions, to employ the term coined by [[Pierre Duhem]]).
==The role of the scientific community==
{{main|Scientific misconduct}}

{{attribution needed|text=Various scientific processes, such as [[peer review]]s, the discussions at [[scientific conference]]s, and other meetings where scientific results are presented, are part of a social process whose purpose is to strengthen the objective aspect of the scientific method.|date=January 2010|reason=This seems like original research or an opinion. Attribution is needed.}}

Next to unintentional and systematic error, there is always the possibility of deliberate misrepresentation of scientific results, whether for gain, fame, or ideological motives. {{according to whom|When such cases of scientific fraud come to light, they usually give rise to an [[academic scandal]], but it is unknown how much fraud goes undiscovered. For important results, other groups will try to repeat the experiment. If they consistently fail, they will bring these negative results into the scientific debate.|date=January 2010}}

==Critiques of scientific objectivity==
A critical argument on scientific objectivity and [[positivism]] is that all science has a degree of [[Antipositivism|interpretivism]].<ref name="History of Psychiatry">{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=64Y6wtqzs7IC&pg=PA29 | title=History of Psychiatry and Medical Psychology: With an Epilogue on Psychiatry and the Mind-Body Relation | publisher=Springer Science & Business Media |author1=Gach, John |author2=Wallace, Edwin R. | year=2010 | isbn=9780387347080}}</ref>{{rp|29}} In the 1920s, Percy Bridgman's ''[[The Logic of Modern Physics]]'' and the [[operationalism]] presented was centered in such recognition.<ref name="History of Psychiatry" />{{rp|29}}

===Thomas Kuhn's ''The Structure of Scientific Revolutions''===

Based on a historical review of the development of certain scientific theories in his book, ''[[The Structure of Scientific Revolutions]]'', scientist and 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 {{lang|la|de facto}} [[paradigm]]s within which scientific research is done, junior scientists are educated, and scientific problems are determined.<ref name="Kuhn">{{Citation |last=Kuhn |first=Thomas S. |title=The Structure of Scientific Revolutions |year=1962 |publisher=The University of Chicago Press |url=http://projektintegracija.pravo.hr/_download/repository/Kuhn_Structure_of_Scientific_Revolutions.pdf |access-date=14 November 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141020001221/http://projektintegracija.pravo.hr/_download/repository/Kuhn_Structure_of_Scientific_Revolutions.pdf |archive-date=20 October 2014 |url-status=dead}}</ref>

When observational data arises which appears to contradict or [[Falsifiability |falsify]] a given [[scientific paradigm]], scientists within that paradigm historically have not immediately rejected it, as [[Karl Popper]]'s philosophical theory of falsificationism would have them do. Instead they have gone to considerable lengths to resolve the apparent conflict without rejecting the paradigm. Through [[ad hoc]] variations to the theory and sympathetic interpretation of the data, supporting scientists will resolve the apparent conundrum. In extreme cases, they may ignore the data altogether. Thus, the failure of a scientific paradigm will go into crisis when a significant portion of scientists working in the field lose confidence in it. The corollary of this observation is that a paradigm is contingent on the social order amongst scientists at the time it gains ascendancy.<ref name="Kuhn" />

Kuhn's theory has been criticised by scientists such as [[Richard Dawkins]] and [[Alan Sokal]] as presenting a [[Relativism |relativist]] view of scientific progress.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Dawkins |first=Richard |author-link=Richard Dawkins |date=2000 |title=Hall Of Mirrors |url=https://www.richarddawkins.net/2000/10/hall-of-mirrors/}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last1=Sokal |first1=Alan |title=Fashionable Nonsense: Postmodern Intellectuals' Abuse of Science |last2=Bricmont |first2=Jean |publisher=[[Picador (imprint)|Picador USA]] |year=1999 |isbn=0312204078 |location=USA |chapter=Intermezzo: Epistemic Relativism in The Philosophy of Science}}</ref>

===Donna Haraway's ''Situated Knowledges''===
{{further|Knowledge#Situated knowledge}}
In ''[[Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective]]'' (1988), [[Donna Haraway]] argues that objectivity in science and philosophy is traditionally understood as a kind of disembodied and transcendent "conquering gaze from nowhere."<ref name="Situated Knowledges">{{cite journal|url=http://www.staff.amu.edu.pl/~ewa/Haraway,%20Situated%20Knowledges.pdf|title=Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective|author=Haraway, Donna|journal=Feminist Studies|date=Autumn 1988|volume=14|issue=3|pages=575–599|doi=10.2307/3178066|jstor=3178066|s2cid=39794636 |url-status=dead|access-date=2015-07-23|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170829114008/http://www.staff.amu.edu.pl/~ewa/Haraway,%20Situated%20Knowledges.pdf|archive-date=2017-08-29}}</ref>{{rp|581}} She argues that this kind of objectivity, in which the subject is split apart and distanced from the object, is an impossible "illusion, a god trick."<ref name="Situated Knowledges"/>{{rp|583–587}} She demands a re-thinking of objectivity in such a way that, while still striving for "faithful accounts of the real world,"<ref name="Situated Knowledges" />{{rp|579}} we must also acknowledge our perspective within the world. She calls this new kind of knowledge-making "situated knowledges." Objectivity, she argues, "turns out to be about particular and specific embodiment and ... not about the false vision promising transcendence of all limits and responsibility". This new objectivity, "allows us to become answerable for what we learn how to see."<ref name="Situated Knowledges"/>{{rp|581–583}}

==See also==
* [[Objectivity (philosophy)]]

==References==
{{reflist}}

===Sources===

* [[Richard Dawkins|Dawkins, Richard]] (2003). ''[[A Devil's Chaplain]]: Selected essays''. Phoenix.
* [[Thomas Kuhn|Kuhn, Thomas]] (1962). ''The structure of scientific revolutions''. University of Chicago Press, 3rd Ed., 1996.
* [[Bruno Latour|Latour, Bruno]] (1987). ''[[Science in Action (book)|Science in Action]]''. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press.
* [[Michael Polanyi|Polanyi, Michael]] (1958). ''Personal knowledge, towards a post-critical philosophy''. London: Routledge.
* [[Alan Sokal|Sokal, Alan]] & [[Jean Bricmont|Bricmont, Jean]] (1999). ''[[Intellectual Impostures]]: Postmodern philosophers' abuse of science''. London: Profile Books.

==Further reading==
*[[Stephen Gaukroger|Gaukroger, S.]] (2001). Objectivity, History of. IN: Smelser, N. J. & Baltes, P. B. (eds.) ''International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences''. Oxford. (pp.&nbsp;10785–10789).
*Porter, Theodore M. (1995). ''Trust in Numbers: The Pursuit of Objectivity in Science and Public Life''. Princeton University Press.
*Restivo, Sal. (20XX). ''Science, Society, and Values: Toward a Sociology of Objectivity''. Lehigh University Press.{{ISBN?}}
*{{Cite encyclopedia|last1=Reiss|first1=Julian|last2=Sprenger|first2=Jan|editor-last=Zalta|editor-first=Edward N.|editor-link=Edward N. Zalta|encyclopedia=[[Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy]]|title=Scientific Objectivity|url=https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2017/entries/scientific-objectivity/|access-date=31 May 2018|edition=Winter 2017|orig-year=First published 25 August 2014|publisher=The Metaphysics Research Lab|location=[[Stanford University]]|date=6 November 2017|issn=1095-5054 |ref=none}}

{{Positivism}}

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[[Category:Philosophy of science]]