Objectivity (science)

Objectivity (science)

Objectivity in science is a value that informs how science is practiced and how scientific truths are created. It is the idea that scientists, in attempting to uncover truths about the natural world, must aspire to eliminate personal biases, a priori commitments, emotional involvement, etc. Objectivity is often attributed to the property of scientific measurement, as the accuracy of a measurement can be tested independent from the individual scientist who first reports it. It is thus intimately related to the aim of testability and reproducibility. To be properly considered objective, the results of measurement must 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.

However, this traditional view about objectivity ignores several things. First, the selection of the specific object to measure is typically a subjective decision and it often involves reductionism. Second, and potentially much more problematic, is the selection of instruments (tools) and measurement methodology. Some features or qualities of the object under study will be ignored in the measurement process, and the limitations of the chosen instruments will cause data to be left out of consideration. In addition to these absolute limits of objectivity surrounding the measurement process, any given community of researchers often shares certain "subjective views", and this subjectivity is therefore built in to the conceptual systems. It can even be built into the design of the tools used for measurement. Total objectivity is arguably not even possible in some—or maybe all—situations. It is, at least, a process replete with uncertainties and challenges (cf. Latour, 1987: 63-79, Polanyi, 1958). One example of an objective idea is in the concept that all perception is relative. In accepting this, one encounters the objective.

Problems arise from not understanding the limits of objectivity in scientific research, especially when results are generalized. Given that the object selection and measurement process are typically subjective, when results of that subjective process are generalized to the larger system from which the object was selected, the stated conclusions are necessarily biased.

Objectivity should not be mixed up with scientific consensus. Scientists may agree at one point in time but later discover that this consensus represented a subjective point of view.