Bias in science (split from Evolution of religiosity)

[Phi for All]

6 minutes ago, Luc Turpin said:

Where is the evidence shooting down my claim of biasness in science?

Please don't resort to strawman fallacies. It was your claims that the bias permeated all of science that were shot down by several posters. At times, you've admitted it's not a universal phenomenon, but then you keep going back to a subjective view, and point out where bias has happened. This is why we keep going around in circles about this. Bias in science exists, but it's not automatic, it's not widespread, and it's not bias to accept explanations that work well for us.

[Genady]

12 minutes ago, Luc Turpin said:

If I say idealism at a science conference, will I be as warmly welcomed as if I say materialism?

Both are unwelcomed.

[TheVat]

7 minutes ago, Genady said:

Both are unwelcomed.

Yep.  Both are a metaphysical stance.  The scientific stance is simply that consistent patterns appear in the phenomenal world as we observe it, and that it is governed by formulae which are uniformly applicable throughout spacetime.  It is an ontology that is known as empiricism.  It is premised on the notion that that which is real can be observed or known by inference from what is observed.

[Luc Turpin]

44 minutes ago, Phi for All said:

Please don't resort to strawman fallacies. It was your claims that the bias permeated all of science that were shot down by several posters. At times, you've admitted it's not a universal phenomenon, but then you keep going back to a subjective view, and point out where bias has happened. This is why we keep going around in circles about this. Bias in science exists, but it's not automatic, it's not widespread, and it's not bias to accept explanations that work well for us.

1-      Fair enough comment of yours that the evidence that I presented is at best circumstantial. But saying that I was shot down by several posters, I beg to differ. It’s where the hand of man has touched, but it is in much better control and easier to control in "hard" sciences such as physics and chemistry. I state and assume responsibility for my statement that there is biasness in neuroscience and, shocking news, most probably in evolutionary biology. As for not being bias to accept explanation that work well for us, I entirely agree..

50 minutes ago, Genady said:

Both are unwelcomed.

If this is true, then I would have to withdraw my comment about science being biased because of its promotion of a preferred worldview

31 minutes ago, TheVat said:

Yep.  Both are a metaphysical stance.  The scientific stance is simply that consistent patterns appear in the phenomenal world as we observe it, and that it is governed by formulae which are uniformly applicable throughout spacetime.  It is an ontology that is known as empiricism.  It is premised on the notion that that which is real can be observed or known by inference from what is observed.

This is what science should be and if indeed it is that, then again my comment about biasness in science would not hold up. But, it seems a long way from what seems to transpire in the real world.

I will pause from posting for a while as my armour is sufficiently dented.

It is a strategic withdrawall to better arm myself with more evidence, if it is out there.

My concern is how can anyone produce hard evidence on a biased worldview.

If I find any, I will share it.

[Mordred]

What I gather from this thread is that bias isn't science but the opinion of the scientific process itself. The way this thread has gone in circles supports that it's the bias of opinion of the scientific method itself 

[TheVat]

18 minutes ago, Luc Turpin said:

This is what science should be and if indeed it is that, then again my comment about biasness in science would not hold up. But, it seems a long way from what seems to transpire in the real world.

And yet there you are, crossing bridges, stepping aboard jetliners, flipping on lightswitches and computers and stoves, taking pharmaceuticals, reading weather forecasts before you select your day's wardrobe, etc as if they were going to work properly, based as they are on empirical science.  You must not be that worried about bias.

And when there is bias, like the over-dependence on computational models of mind, prominent scientists (like my cited one, Robert Epstein) make beaucoup de bruit about it and there are massive critical discussions all over the Web and in professional journals and pretty soon MIT Technology Review and Nature and Scientific American are devoting feature stories to how computers are a weak and sometimes misleading metaphor for how brains work.  

Indeed, it's hard to imagine any other human mode of knowledge that is so brutally mean towards bias.  The glee that scientists bring to finding bias, in peer review, is breathtaking.

[swansont]

36 minutes ago, Luc Turpin said:

My concern is how can anyone produce hard evidence on a biased worldview.

You devise experiments that don’t depend on it. Your position seems to be that you can’t, and yet we have a while bunch of science that works, and we know it works because we build technology based on it. These things wouldn’t work if the science was flawed.

Science has a number of questions that took a long time to answer, and many are still unanswered. Not having an answer is not evidence that bias is the reason for that.

I’m not dialed in to the state of cognitive science, so I don’t know the details of why certain models are not considered or if they were and subsequently rejected, but the latter does happen — incorrect conjectures are discarded all the time when the model does not match the evidence, and it has nothing to do with bias. 

 

[Luc Turpin]

2 hours ago, Luc Turpin said:

1-      Fair enough comment of yours that the evidence that I presented is at best circumstantial. But saying that I was shot down by several posters, I beg to differ. It’s where the hand of man has touched, but it is in much better control and easier to control in "hard" sciences such as physics and chemistry. I state and assume responsibility for my statement that there is biasness in neuroscience and, shocking news, most probably in evolutionary biology. As for not being bias to accept explanation that work well for us, I entirely agree..

If this is true, then I would have to withdraw my comment about science being biased because of its promotion of a preferred worldview

This is what science should be and if indeed it is that, then again my comment about biasness in science would not hold up. But, it seems a long way from what seems to transpire in the real world.

I will pause from posting for a while as my armour is sufficiently dented.

It is a strategic withdrawall to better arm myself with more evidence, if it is out there.

My concern is how can anyone produce hard evidence on a biased worldview.

If I find any, I will share it.

Why the -1 ? Need time to gather what everyone is clamouring for, and stoping this discussion from going around in circle. As a matter of statement, I might be the only one thinking that this conversation is actually not going in circle as I have learned in the process, it was established that people not process was at the origin of bias and that some of you have been initiated to the concept of worldview having a probable impact on science. I long route that we have walked together.

1 hour ago, Mordred said:

What I gather from this thread is that bias isn't science but the opinion of the scientific process itself. The way this thread has gone in circles supports that it's the bias of opinion of the scientific method itself 

People not process is at the origin of bias, I think.

[Mordred]

17 minutes ago, Luc Turpin said:

 

People not process is at the origin of bias, I think.

That I would agree with. Regardless of the science if the science doesn't match evidence. Then the theory gets changed to account or gets dropped. 

[Luc Turpin]

1 hour ago, TheVat said:

And yet there you are, crossing bridges, stepping aboard jetliners, flipping on lightswitches and computers and stoves, taking pharmaceuticals, reading weather forecasts before you select your day's wardrobe, etc as if they were going to work properly, based as they are on empirical science.  You must not be that worried about bias.

And when there is bias, like the over-dependence on computational models of mind, prominent scientists (like my cited one, Robert Epstein) make beaucoup de bruit about it and there are massive critical discussions all over the Web and in professional journals and pretty soon MIT Technology Review and Nature and Scientific American are devoting feature stories to how computers are a weak and sometimes misleading metaphor for how brains work.  

Indeed, it's hard to imagine any other human mode of knowledge that is so brutally mean towards bias.  The glee that scientists bring to finding bias, in peer review, is breathtaking.

1- when did I say that science was not great and not beneficial to humanity. The contrary, i am all for science. What I am saying is that there is a part missing if one wishes to fully grasp reality, and what is hampering this quest for a fuller reality is partly bias.

2- hope that this time it will push aside the prevailing computer model of brain. Allow me to be a bit doubtful on though. So far, it has made very limited in ground on the neuroscience community 
 

3- the process is brutally hard on bias. The weakness lies with scientists and the scientific community.

1 hour ago, swansont said:

You devise experiments that don’t depend on it. Your position seems to be that you can’t, and yet we have a while bunch of science that works, and we know it works because we build technology based on it. These things wouldn’t work if the science was flawed.

Science has a number of questions that took a long time to answer, and many are still unanswered. Not having an answer is not evidence that bias is the reason for that.

I’m not dialed in to the state of cognitive science, so I don’t know the details of why certain models are not considered or if they were and subsequently rejected, but the latter does happen — incorrect conjectures are discarded all the time when the model does not match the evidence, and it has nothing to do with bias. 

 

Again, science is very good at exploring and understanding the objective part of reality. That is why we have such great technology. That is why covid did not wreak more havoc onto the world. How many times do I have to state that science is great at what it does. If it can find a way of exploring the subjective part of reality or at least respecting what others are saying about it, then we are in business toward a greater understanding of reality

13 minutes ago, Mordred said:

That I would agree with. Regardless of the science if the science doesn't match evidence. Then the theory gets changed to account or gets dropped. 

Yes, but sometimes is it possible that the evidence is just ignored?

[swansont]

1 hour ago, Luc Turpin said:

If it can find a way of exploring the subjective part of reality or at least respecting what others are saying about it, then we are in business toward a greater understanding of reality

Science doesn’t do subjective reality. I can’t examine data that only you can see (i.e. a subjective experience) and you can’t have a law of nature that only works for some people. A rock either falls or it doesn’t. Atoms either form a compound or they don’t. 

You can have subjective experiences; 25 C might feel hot to you but not to someone else, but the temperature being 25 C is objectively true.

You might not like that this is the case (subjective) but your preferences are not science.

[TheVat]

45 minutes ago, Luc Turpin said:

Yes, but sometimes is it possible that the evidence is just ignored?

By fraudulent or shoddy science.   It is important to understand that if I go to the trouble of gathering data in good faith then I am not going to ignore it.  If others do the same experiment and it looks like they get really different data, then there will be intense peer review and scrutiny of our datasets and methods.  A common fraud is someone getting data that doesn't support their favored hypothesis and so they massage the data to fit.  Because very few scientists are the sole researchers in an area of inquiry, this kind of fraud has a way of being discovered.

Someone reported that transcranial magnetic stimulus of the parietal lobe caused people to see God.  Turned out to be bad interpretation of data and experimenter asking subjects leading questions and limiting the sample to religious people.  Then others repeated the TCMS experiment with a better cross-section of population, more open and neutral questions as to what was felt, more longitudinal data (repeating experiment with a subject multiple times over a couple years) and so on.  From those experiments it seemed the parietal lobe simply generated a sense of presence and then people filled in with details that, in their cultural context, made sense to them.

Shoddy science and fraud, ignoring evidence, tends to reveal itself.  

 

 

[Mordred]

Another good example of shoddy science is perpetual motion machines. You sometimes see papers that seem well written and have all the required details. However if the experiment cannot be reproduced by other independent examiners. You know something is fishy.

If others perform the same experiment then the two experiments should match within reasonable approximation allowing for potential error margins.

Edited June 7 by Mordred

[Luc Turpin]

15 minutes ago, swansont said:

Science doesn’t do subjective reality. I can’t examine data that only you can see (i.e. a subjective experience) and you can’t have a law of nature that only works for some people. A rock either falls or it doesn’t. Atoms either form a compound or they don’t. 

You can have subjective experiences; 25 C might feel hot to you but not to someone else, but the temperature being 25 C is objectively true.

You might not like that this is the case (subjective) but your preferences are not science.

Can we not ask 100 people how 25c feels like and then average out the results?

how about a validated questionnaire for nde experiencers?

How about documenting supposedly mystical experiences and see if there are patterns?

science can explore the subjective through indirect evidencing

Was the higg’s boson not confirmed through a five sigma significance on a distribution graph? Did the higg’s boson appear at every trial or was it an average of occurrences?

 

 

 

 

9 minutes ago, TheVat said:

By fraudulent or shoddy science.   It is important to understand that if I go to the trouble of gathering data in good faith then I am not going to ignore it.  If others do the same experiment and it looks like they get really different data, then there will be intense peer review and scrutiny of our datasets and methods.  A common fraud is someone getting data that doesn't support their favored hypothesis and so they massage the data to fit.  Because very few scientists are the sole researchers in an area of inquiry, this kind of fraud has a way of being discovered.

Someone reported that transcranial magnetic stimulus of the parietal lobe caused people to see God.  Turned out to be bad interpretation of data and experimenter asking subjects leading questions and limiting the sample to religious people.  Then others repeated the TCMS experiment with a better cross-section of population, more open and neutral questions as to what was felt, more longitudinal data (repeating experiment with a subject multiple times over a couple years) and so on.  From those experiments it seemed the parietal lobe simply generated a sense of presence and then people filled in with details that, in their cultural context, made sense to them.

Shoddy science and fraud, ignoring evidence, tends to reveal itself.  

 

 

My point is the ignoring of data because it does not fit with current paradigm

9 minutes ago, Mordred said:

Another good example of shoddy science is perpetual motion machines. You sometimes see papers that seem well written and have all the required details. However if the experiment cannot be reproduced by other independent examiners. You know something is fishy.

If others perform the same experiment then the two experiments should match within reasonable approximation allowing for potential error margins.

I know of the principle of replicability.

my question again is what if replicable data is ignored because it does not fit the current paradigm?

[MSC]

6 hours ago, Luc Turpin said:

Dawkins does not state that subjectivity does not exist (sorry for the two negatives in the sentence), but that subjectivity operates like a "fog" that distorts objective reality. He states that "now is the time for all good people to come to the aid of objective truth". As if objectivity was in danger and that those defending 'objectivity" are only the good gals and guys. Sounds like another crusade.

Humans retaining objectivity (or gaining, depending on how you look at it) is under threat as far as I'm concerned, or did we all miss TFG and all the political windbags yelling things like "fake news" or "alternative facts" for almost a decade? Objectivity in this instance equates to hard material truths about out world and universes state. So what exactly is wrong with asking people to defend truth? It's also clearly not equivalent to a crusade either because nobody is being threatened with death, by scientists, for not believing scientific facts or not actively seeking out further education. I'm pretty sure Dawkins means to defend the truth, by speaking it and teaching it. What's wrong with that? Why would that be a crusade?

[Luc Turpin]

15 minutes ago, MSC said:

Humans retaining objectivity (or gaining, depending on how you look at it) is under threat as far as I'm concerned, or did we all miss TFG and all the political windbags yelling things like "fake news" or "alternative facts" for almost a decade? Objectivity in this instance equates to hard material truths about out world and universes state. So what exactly is wrong with asking people to defend truth? It's also clearly not equivalent to a crusade either because nobody is being threatened with death, by scientists, for not believing scientific facts or not actively seeking out further education. I'm pretty sure Dawkins means to defend the truth, by speaking it and teaching it. What's wrong with that? Why would that be a crusade?

In the sense that you describe it, objectivity may be well under threat. In my neck of the woods, it is not as threatened. A bit of humour not seriousness on my part in the use of the term crusade.

[MSC]

17 minutes ago, Luc Turpin said:

my question again is what if replicable data is ignored because it does not fit the current paradigm

Reread Mordreds comment and I'll provide an explanation of why it's relevant to your question here.

22 minutes ago, Mordred said:

Another good example of shoddy science is perpetual motion machines. You sometimes see papers that seem well written and have all the required details. However if the experiment cannot be reproduced by other independent examiners. You know something is fishy.

If others perform the same experiment then the two experiments should match within reasonable approximation allowing for potential error margins.

@Luc Turpin When Mordred mentioned how verification by other independent examiners worked, he forgot to mention that what the "current paradigm" is can vary greatly not just between individuals but universities and other funders and enablers of research. When you say "current paradigm" my response is who's paradigm? Stanford? Oxford? You have debates raging in many fields about how to interpret facts and data, you have secular schools, religious schools, you have people who want to fund medicine and people who want to fund military research. Some people have telescopes and other sensors pointing at the sky to look at cosmological phenomena, look for aliens, to look for evidence of God etc. Human scientific motivation isn't limited to some secularist group telling everyone what is right and what is wrong. It's much more complex and for every idea or claim that is poopooed by one group, there is another group who will look into it with relish. It's either a lovely system of checks and balances on an entire ecosystem of scientific and philosophical thought or a great big confusing mess. 

1 hour ago, swansont said:

You can have subjective experiences; 25 C might feel hot to you but not to someone else, but the temperature being 25 C is objectively true.

I'd also add that in psychology and physiology you could look for an objective theory of explanation as to why two people might have a different experience of the same temperature and it could be something simple like one was just in a cold walk in fridge and the other was just in a greenhouse.  Or one has autism and the other doesn't. 

The subjective stuff that gets me is the whole qualia debate. Should I care if green through your eyes doesn't look like green through my eyes when we can both still look at a green object and still both call it green? As far as I'm concerned that debate should only happen if you can prove two non colourblind people are having a different experience of the same colour.

[Luc Turpin]

29 minutes ago, MSC said:

Reread Mordreds comment and I'll provide an explanation of why it's relevant to your question here.

@Luc Turpin When Mordred mentioned how verification by other independent examiners worked, he forgot to mention that what the "current paradigm" is can vary greatly not just between individuals but universities and other funders and enablers of research. When you say "current paradigm" my response is who's paradigm? Stanford? Oxford? You have debates raging in many fields about how to interpret facts and data, you have secular schools, religious schools, you have people who want to fund medicine and people who want to fund military research. Some people have telescopes and other sensors pointing at the sky to look at cosmological phenomena, look for aliens, to look for evidence of God etc. Human scientific motivation isn't limited to some secularist group telling everyone what is right and what is wrong. It's much more complex and for every idea or claim that is poopooed by one group, there is another group who will look into it with relish. It's either a lovely system of checks and balances on an entire ecosystem of scientific and philosophical thought or a great big confusing mess. 

I'd also add that in psychology and physiology you could look for an objective theory of explanation as to why two people might have a different experience of the same temperature and it could be something simple like one was just in a cold walk in fridge and the other was just in a greenhouse.  Or one has autism and the other doesn't. 

The subjective stuff that gets me is the whole qualia debate. Should I care if green through your eyes doesn't look like green through my eyes when we can both still look at a green object and still both call it green? As far as I'm concerned that debate should only happen if you can prove two non colourblind people are having a different experience of the same colour.

Lot’s to unpack in your post. I find the multiplicity of paradigms interesting. And I was aware of varying institutional bias, but did not dared to bring it up. Does this demonstrate even more bias in science?

As for qualia, I also do not see the issue about interpretation between seekers, but where it comes from or how it is produced is enigmatic to me. 

 

 

 

[Mordred]

1 hour ago, Luc Turpin said:

 

my question again is what if replicable data is ignored because it does not fit the current paradigm?

Ok let's do a personal experienced example. I once wrote a dissertation paper using quintessence for inflation. At that time period there were dozens of quintessence inflationary models kicking around. The two most popular classes of inflationary models were Chaotic eternal inflation and quintessence. (Everyone believed in one or the other).  My disseration at that time was a good match to COBE findings.  Then WMAP took measurement of the CMB and with its findings my dissertation instantly became null and void as the equations state I had could not be fixed to account for the required E-folds. Theory done proven incorrect with one dataset. Later confirmed by other datasets. 

All it takes is 1 reasobably conclusive test  to invalid a given theory. That's the process. It doesn't matter how strongly myself or others believe in a theory. Tests and evidence can trump any theory if it doesn't match up to observational and experimental evidence. The last couple of years I have been researching Higgs inflation so far I know I can get write a paper on it that would match current observational evidence  however if new evidence becomes available it could just as easily trump the theory I'm working on.

Edited June 7 by Mordred

[MSC]

12 minutes ago, Luc Turpin said:

Does this demonstrate even more bias in science?

No; it represents institutional bias and I want you to think very carefully what I mean by an institution; we are talking adminstrators, support staff, managers, investors, researchers and it even includes cultural and familial biases of all of those individuals. The scientific method is all about reducing bias, human bias and human bias is indeed the only real issue here. 

16 minutes ago, Luc Turpin said:

As for qualia, I also do not see the issue about interpretation between seekers, but where it comes from or how it is produced is enigmatic to me.

A puzzle to be solved by looking in the right places and asking the right questions. I envy your journey of discovery. This is the part where I normally go full salesman on contextualism and contextual studies but I think they keywords will suffice. 

3 minutes ago, Mordred said:

Ok let's do a personal experienced example. I once wrote a dissertation paper using quintessence for inflation. At that time period there were dozens of quintessence inflationary models kicking around. The two most popular classes of inflationary models were Chaotic eternal inflation and quintessence. (Everyone believed in one or the other). Then WMAP took measurement of the CMB and with its findings my dissertation instantly became null and void as the equations state I had could not be fixed to account for the required E-folds. Theory done proven incorrect with one dataset. Later confirmed by other datasets. 

All it takes is 1 reasobably conclusive test  to invalid a given theory. That's the process. It doesn't matter how strongly myself or others believe in a theory. Tests and evidence can trump any theory if it doesn't match up to observational and experimental evidence. The last couple of years I have been researching Higgs inflation so far I know I can get write a paper on it that would match current observational evidence  however if new evidence becomes available it could just as easily trump the theory I'm working on.

Unrelated but can I privately pick your brain about a few things related to paper publishing?

22 minutes ago, Luc Turpin said:

I find the multiplicity of paradigms interesting. And I was aware of varying institutional bias, but did not dared to bring it up.

Like I said; It's either a system of checks and balances on an ecosystem of thought or one big confusing mess. 

4 hours ago, Luc Turpin said:

the process is brutally hard on bias. The weakness lies with scientists and the scientific community.

Aka, people. 

[swansont]

2 hours ago, Luc Turpin said:

Can we not ask 100 people how 25c feels like and then average out the results?

Sure. You could find out what conditions feel hot and correlate it with many factors (age, sex, weight, climate they are acclimated to) but what you can’t do is objectively say that it is hot because you feel hot.

2 hours ago, Luc Turpin said:

how about a validated questionnaire for nde experiencers?

Without details, I can’t comment on what that would tell you, other than some people have that experience.

 

2 hours ago, Luc Turpin said:

How about documenting supposedly mystical experiences and see if there are patterns?

Same as above.

The issue with mystical experiences is the attribution of the cause, not that some people have such an experience. But I can subject anyone to a temperature of 25C, while one generally can’t induce a mystical experience.

By not being specific you’re potentially mixing scientific and non-scientific effects. This is just as bad as your extrapolation from a specific to general behavior.

 

2 hours ago, Luc Turpin said:

science can explore the subjective through indirect evidencing

Was the higg’s boson not confirmed through a five sigma significance on a distribution graph? Did the higg’s boson appear at every trial or was it an average of occurrences?

QM is based on probability so outcomes sometimes happen and sometimes not, but the math means you can predict outcomes with precision.

 

2 hours ago, Luc Turpin said:

my question again is what if replicable data is ignored because it does not fit the current paradigm?

Establish that it was, and not for some other reason

[Mordred]

6 minutes ago, MSC said:

 

Unrelated but can I privately pick your brain about a few things related to paper publishing?

 

You can but keep in mind that dissertation was back in the late 80's lol and publishing requirements will vary depending on the publisher. Swansont for example has a peer reviewed paper on arxiv. I studied it a few years back.

[Luc Turpin]

15 minutes ago, Mordred said:

Ok let's do a personal experienced example. I once wrote a dissertation paper using quintessence for inflation. At that time period there were dozens of quintessence inflationary models kicking around. The two most popular classes of inflationary models were Chaotic eternal inflation and quintessence. (Everyone believed in one or the other).  My disseration at that time was a good match to COBE findings.  Then WMAP took measurement of the CMB and with its findings my dissertation instantly became null and void as the equations state I had could not be fixed to account for the required E-folds. Theory done proven incorrect with one dataset. Later confirmed by other datasets. 

All it takes is 1 reasobably conclusive test  to invalid a given theory. That's the process. It doesn't matter how strongly myself or others believe in a theory. Tests and evidence can trump any theory if it doesn't match up to observational and experimental evidence. The last couple of years I have been researching Higgs inflation so far I know I can get write a paper on it that would match current observational evidence  however if new evidence becomes available it could just as easily trump the theory I'm working on.

When I read msc,I see bias all over science and when I read yours i see no bias at play; I am now totally confused

17 minutes ago, MSC said:

No; it represents institutional bias and I want you to think very carefully what I mean by an institution; we are talking adminstrators, support staff, managers, investors, researchers and it even includes cultural and familial biases of all of those individuals. The scientific method is all about reducing bias, human bias and human bias is indeed the only real issue here. 

A puzzle to be solved by looking in the right places and asking the right questions. I envy your journey of discovery. This is the part where I normally go full salesman on contextualism and contextual studies but I think they keywords will suffice. 

 

1- got it and yes, the only issue is biased people 

2-yes, looking at the right places and asking the right questions

[Mordred]

Lets try this tact. One can get a research grant or other sources of funding.  Say the grant is to validate the Earth is flat. (This actually happened to a flat Earth society). They performed a test. They went into the test with full bias. The Earth is flat and I'm going to prove it attitude. To their utter disappointment the test showed the Earth was round. I will give them credit though. They honestly announced their findings.

When I wrote that dissertation I believed strongly in my theory. So I likely had a bias based on how strongly I believed in it. Yet like that flat Earth society. I accepted the findings as being valid enough to counter my previous belief in my theory.

[MSC]

25 minutes ago, swansont said:

but what you can’t do is objectively say that it is hot because you feel hot

Just a tiny nit pick; You are however qualified to make objective statements about your person as an object and there can be an objective medical basis for such a statement. You also have the go to inquiry for an external check on your perception of heat by asking "Is it hot in here or is it just me?". 

This is that context dependency stuff I talked about in a different discussion mixed with an interpretation of applied logic I came across in R Cohens Preface to logic. He was pointing out that a physicist, An MD and a psychologist could all be witness to a person jumping off a building and be observing different datasets in the same situation and arriving at different facts about the situation all while still being objective and utilising logic in the same way. Sorry I said tiny nit pick and went off on a tangent. 

32 minutes ago, Luc Turpin said:

When I read msc,I see bias all over science and when I read yours i see no bias at play; I am now totally confused

Because Mordred is foccused on hard sciences where there is far more consensus and most of the debates that rage there are about what new data in the future will say and less about what old data says. Meanwhile I'm more engaged with the social sciences where not only biases but agendas influence the fields greatly, especially in psychology. 

43 minutes ago, Mordred said:

Swansont for example has a peer reviewed paper on arxiv. I studied it a few years back.

Why do I want to read that so bad?! Probably wouldn't understand much but I'm curious. Anyway will shoot you a message.