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Science and Objectivity Note: I have consulted forum guidelines and believe the following to be compliant! ____________________________________________________________________________________ Does true objectivity exist in science? Apparently, the pure form of it does not, certainly not in the form of 2+2=4 as would some have us believe. I have tried to be as objective as possible on this topic by consulting many references on the matter. To my surprise, none seem to claim that “view from nowhere” objectivity truly exists. Even in physics, it is not pure. But, is objectivity sufficiently objective to give us a general appreciation of reality, most authors that I have consulted think so, while I and a minority of others remain doubtful. Reading all of the references would make for a better discussion, but here are a few highlights. The first one is a very good summary of the whole debate. “If what is so great about science is its objectivity, then objectivity should be worth defending. The close examinations of scientific practice that philosophers of science have undertaken in the past fifty years have shown, however, that several conceptions of the ideal of objectivity are either questionable or unattainable. The prospects for a science providing a non-perspectival “view from nowhere” or for proceeding in a way uninformed by human goals and values are fairly slim, for example.” https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/scientific-objectivity/ “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 de facto paradigms within which scientific research is done, junior scientists are educated, and scientific problems are determined.[5] When observational data arises which appears to contradict or 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.[5] Kuhn's theory has been criticised by scientists such as Richard Dawkins and Alan Sokal as presenting a relativist view of scientific progress.[6][7]” “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."[8]: 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."[8]: 583–587  She demands a re-thinking of objectivity in such a way that, while still striving for "faithful accounts of the real world,"[8]: 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."[8]: 581–583  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objectivity_(science) There are various conceptions of objectivity, a characteristic of the scientific enterprise, the most fundamental being objectivity as faithfulness to facts. A brute fact, which happens independently from us, becomes a scientific fact once we take cognisance of it through the means made available to us by science. Because of the complex, reciprocal relationship between scientific facts and scientific theory, the concept of objectivity as faithfulness to facts does not hold in the strict sense of an aperspectival faithfulness to brute facts. Nevertheless, it holds in the large sense of an underdetermined faithfulness to scientific facts, as long as we keep in mind the complexity of the notion of scientific fact (as theory-laden), and the role of non-factual elements in theory choice (as underdetermined by facts). Science remains our best way to separate our factual beliefs from our other kinds of beliefs. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03080188.2022.2150807 “The admiration of science among the general public and the authority science enjoys in public life stems to a large extent from the view that science is objective or at least more objective than other modes of inquiry.” – The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, “Scientific Objectivity” “There is no such thing as objectivity. We are all just interpreting signals from the universe and trying to make sense of them.” ― Bones, “The Doctor in the Photo” “All the evidence points in the opposite direction: every true description is essentially contextual.” https://philarchive.org/archive/HALODI-2 “But in a paper recently published in Science Advances, we show that, in the micro-world of atoms and particles that is governed by the strange rules of quantum mechanics, two different observers are entitled to their own facts. In other words, according to our best theory of the building blocks of nature itself, facts can actually be subjective.” https://theconversation.com/quantum-physics-our-study-suggests-objective-reality-doesnt-exist-126805 Many people praise physics for being an “objective” science. In “inferior” sciences like sociology, there is seldom any overall consensus on theories, and things are more open to subjective interpretation. But physics on the other hand is the mature man of the sciences, as it is immune to human biases. After all, it relies on cold hard facts — but how true is that? We often think of physics as a veracious equation handed to us from the sky, but how objective is physics, really? In today’s article, we’ll talk about how the history of physics is riddled with many biases and fallacies that still exist to this day. https://medium.com/@thisscience1/how-objective-is-physics-4072ae22d207 “Summary: Physics, by which I mean models of how reality works at the most fundamental level, is a subjective endeavor. Physics seems to be objective, but that's because there's high intersubjective consensus about which models best explain and predict reality. Rounding this off to objective causes confusion, and the point generalizes for all seemingly objective things.” https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/CEXxRcCcWmuEikgvg/physics-is-ultimately-subjective I cast a shadow on objectivity, on reality garnered from this objectivity, on science and its presumed immunity to subjectivity and the reception of ideas brought about by myself to this forum.

I think you’d have been better served to select a different character or made one up, perhaps a friend of Einsteins cousin who wasn’t as well studied or known

?? Maybe you're having a bad day. Wishing you the very best.