3. On the Myth of Objectivity
(this is a bit technical, if you wish you may skip this part :p)
One of the prominent point that works in favour of Science is that it is alleged to be objective. By objective, it is meant that any hypothesis or experiment or theory is out there accessible to others and not something that only I have a privileged access to. It also implies that the enquirer should avoid any presuppositions or prejudices while carrying out a research. Thus it appeals to reason rather than faith.
However, this objectivity of science was over-emphasized to the extent that human element in any research or discovery came to be bracketed off altogether. Philosophers of Science, especially Karl Popper, whose work has highly influenced the thinkers which were to come later on the scene (Kuhn, Lakatos and Fayeraband), have made a serious attempt to show how scientific method cannot be absolutely objective. Here, I cite Popper -
The belief that science proceeds from observation to theory is still so widely and so firmly held that my denial of it is often met with incredulity. Twenty-five years ago I tried to bring home the same point to a group of physics students in Vienna by beginning a lecture with the following instructions: ‘Take pencil and paper; carefully observe, and write down what you have observed!’ They asked, of course, what I wanted them to observe. Clearly the instruction, ‘Observe!’ is absurd…
A hungry animal … divides the environment into edible and inedible things. An animal in flight sees the roads to escape and hiding places… Generally speaking, objects change… according to the needs of the animal. … For the animal, a point of view is provided by its needs, the task of the moment, and its expectations: for the scientist by his theoretical interests, the special problem under investigation, his conjectures and anticipations, and the theories in which he accepts as a kind of background: his frame of reference, his 'horizon of expectations’.
- Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge, Karl Popper