objectivity is not boolean or absolute, it is practiced to degrees. it is simply the act of rising above ones personal biases and experiences while remaining informed by them, which cannot be done if one isn’t aware of what those are.
objectivity, rationality, logic, empiricism are the four pillars of rational thought and necessary for both science and society. objectivity does not mean peoples experiences and opinions aren’t subjective, if they weren’t we wouldn’t have a need for it. objectivity is something we strive for, not something we reach.
In science, control groups, repeatability, and double blinds are all attempts to bring more objectivity into the process and mitigate the subjective biases of the observers. We attempt, and fail, in numerous ways to do something similar with our legal processes because that is the only way bring fairness and justice.
People putting on the air of objectivity and authority when down talking to someone. belittling and patronizing them with half baked pseudologic. that behaviour is just the worst, full stop. awful and the exact opposite of objectivity, truly subjective entitled ignorance. it is someone who is so subjectively myopic from their position of privilege as to be have very little actual objectivity to their own biases.
objectivity is a positive non absolute quality that is informed by acknowledging our subjective experiences.
Just be aware that there might be other subjectivities at play here.
“We need to make the plane behave in a certain manner to save on certification and retraining costs.”
“We need to create shareholder value”
“We need to make a profound statement about the neocapitalist western hegemony.”
“We believe that plane is a threat to the security of the state.”
To value one subjectivity above all others because it “aligns with your welfare as a passenger”-- that’s just bias, and you need to be called out for that bias.
I admit I am usually biased in favor of letting a pilot fly the plane instead of a random passenger. I think their net subjectivities are inclined toward flying a plane with basic proficiency and self-preservation as their ultimate expression, on average.
I think objectivity tends to work in science because in a sense the goal is to predict the behavior of an objective system–perhaps for use in engineering-- the observer’s bias tends to add noise to the system.
In something like history–that sort of goal would be regarded as inherently political. Even if you can pretend that transparency can substitute for objectivity-- letting the sources speak for themselves, political considerations can change which sources you choose to highlight. (and that’s not such a bad thing,)
I’ve taken a college course in “Cultural Marxism.” After some years, one of the things I remember was that the Frankfurt School disparaged the Vienna Circle for engaging in “Logical Positivism”.
my take on the two in case that was in reply to me.
science: objectivity is necessary for science because it reduces the personal subjective bias. you can’t do science without it.
subjective history: the stories of various peoples and cultures. very important for trying to understand others perspectives and experiences. very valuable even though it will never be free of the subjective lense of the teller and reader both. you wouldn’t want it to be.
objective history: certain records, measurements, dates. whatever the factual details we have are. equally important for different reasons.
the date a battle was fought might be objective history, the why and experiences and reasons would be the subjective history. history is part science, part record keeping, and part story telling.
Thomas Kuhn wasn’t against the scientific method or objectivity in science, no. His points were precisely about unrecognized disciplinary subjective biases impacting progress of innovation and discovery and how those from other disciplines can, from a more objective viewpoint on the subject, informed by different past subjective experiences, introduce paradigm shifts.
absolute objectivity, yes. words. there isn’t any science without objectivity, it isn’t possible. the things designed to increase objectivity, control groups, double blinds, repeatability, are all essential to good science. thinking that objectivity and subjectivity are exclusive can exist outside of each other isn’t quite right, they are co-existent concepts that cannot exist independently.
An argument between reformers and revolutionaries? Meanwhile the reactionaries were far off to the right, watching with binoculars, not liking either of them.
I’m not trained in psychology, but I remember reading a paper in which the experimenters trained volunteers to evaluate the data produced by the experimental setup. To my naive eyes, it seemed like a good way to reduce effects of subjectivity, but I haven’t read enough in the field to understand if it was a standard practice.
Speaking as a genealogist, I can tell you that even vital records aren’t as objective and factual as people think. People fill them out, and people have a lot of biases (and also make honest errors).
“history” is quite a mix of both. I’d imagine genealogy has a lot of bias that has to be factored for. i’ve found it fascinating when genetics reveal some of these more interesting cases.
not in direct reply to you, or about history …
what i was trying unsuccessfully communicate earlier is that
absolute objectivity only exists outside an observer
absolute subjectivity only exists outside of intersectionality
everything any of us experience is degrees of both
leaning towards one or the other can be positive and useful for very different purposes
valuing both is important in order to be good and have good things
…so, we’re all agreed to write Tim Harford with the ‘Cautionary Tales’ podcast and suffrag-Urd him to seed the quantum state field with sparse Cautioning in the Tales, right? Give or take a hyperbranched telomere?
[have you been doing a lot of pair programming lately? Super worried on that account. Maybe WIRED in March is gonna have a story of everyone you asked to fold themselves over six times who then did…]
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