Dec 12, 2007 3:17:03 AM cite

How objective is science? Not very, Science is based on observation and as so it is interpretive. What are called facts are often opinions about what is happening. Science relies on facts when in reality facts are nonexistent, show me a fact and I will show you a way to disprove it. What science does is manipulate nature in a way to steal something deemed useful to man.

by Thai sean

Sep 30, 2006 12:35:19 AM cite

How objective science is falls far to often to what the objective is. Too often science does not occur because it is there, more often it occurs with the motivation of money,patents, or fame at the end of the day. Science today for the most part is as objective as the goal.

by RedSevenOne

Sep 10, 2006 12:08:45 PM cite

science is not objective. Scientific research in general goes out to look closely at the value or truth of a certain hypothesis. It cannot be objective, because that would mean to look at all aspects of a phenomenon at once. Since this is impossible, science cannot be objective. The on advantage that science has over belief and guessing is that it knows about its own lack of objectivity and therefore is always open for rearrangement and overthrowing of its findings. This and the use of research methods that allow for repeated results are about as close to objectivity as we can get.

by kirachan

Sep 9, 2006 4:40:00 PM cite

Antoschka - Ekaterina Moshaeva: Science is only an experiment. These are ideas of different people who are good educated and narrow-orientated. Scientists are like children. They play because they have passion and interest in this theme. They work on it. I know a lot of scientists who are very fantastic people. And what is objectivity? It's only a human being - very intellectual, very intelligent, very professional but human being can make mistakes. Mistakes are not bad things, you know. People can make mistakes and in mistakes making mistakes they get experience what is possible to do and what not. And they as personalities have the right to do this. But other people mustn't sit and wait and say: You are absolutely right because you don't make mistakes. Why? Why? We make mistakes every day. Maybe, sometimes it's very healthy to make mistakes because you get experience. For example, clowns are not afraid of mistakes and not being perfect because every mistake opens a new level in their lives. We grow up in mistakes. We cannot say another people that they must be perfect because we ourselves are also not perfect.

by Antoschka - Ekaterina Moshaeva

Sep 9, 2006 4:40:00 PM cite

Abbas Beydoun: I do not have enough knowledge to answer this question.

by Abbas Beydoun

Sep 9, 2006 4:40:00 PM cite

Alvaro Restrepo:

by Alvaro Restrepo

Sep 9, 2006 4:40:00 PM cite

Ana Lucy Bengochea: science is good, is philosphic and it is investigation. When science is applied in a transparent way you have to search for knowledge, but it is also the case that science is used together with patents of exorbitant interest; that is especially the case with native people. Big companies receive these patents in the following way: scientists go to the communities to investigate, but results are not made public to the community. Then, suddenly, the community gets to know that a big company has patented something which belongs to the community and receives money from these patents. We must not allow this. Patents must go to the people who really deserve them.

by Ana Lucy Bengochea

Sep 9, 2006 4:40:00 PM cite

Andries Botha: [A very] interesting question Janina. You know science works on what they call hypotheses or assumptions, and then they set out to develop a kind of quantifiable objectivity about it. Or they set out to prove that assumption. You know, there is a problem when we begin to confuse that objectivity with relative truth, or truth as we know it, or use that objectivity as a basis which to discount all other assumptions which are held. I think that that is where the problem lies. The fact that we live in this age of reason, the fact that we’ve assumed that science defines us, you know, we feel therefore we are; it’s not because we think because we are. We - we feel because we are. So you know very often you know our feelings and our emotions cannot be quantified scientifically. And the abandonment of those deeper, more subjective knowledges - knowledge systems, and the whole scale adaption of our rational faculties, hasn’t particularly taken the world to a better place.

by Andries Botha

Sep 9, 2006 4:40:00 PM cite

Angaangaq Lyberth: Answertext will be available soon.

by Angaangaq Lyberth

Sep 9, 2006 4:40:00 PM cite

Anthony Arnove: No science is divorced from human history, from context, from social interests, material interests, so it is important to understand the situation, the situatedness of science, to understand history of [serious] science, to understand the politics of science, particularly given the history of how science has been used to very destructive ends, for ideological ends, for particularistic ends, the way in which science has been used for very subjective ends. But, in recognizing that, I think it is important not to throw out the baby with the bathwater and to reject the goal of scientific understanding, to reject the goal of objectivity and disinterestedness in the pursuit of knowledge, and that there is dialectical relationship between historical interest and a scientific method that begins to approach the question of how we can understand the world and that really – that understanding is important to ultimately transforming the world. So, I think we should always problematize the question of objectivity in science and yet understand the radical potential for that concept at the same time.

by Anthony Arnove

Sep 9, 2006 4:40:00 PM cite

Anuradha Koirala: Scientists [inaudible] to find it.

by Anuradha Koirala

Sep 9, 2006 4:40:00 PM cite

Anuradha Mittal: I think in today’s world where science is more and more driven by whether in the academia or in the private sector by corporations, it can no longer be said that it is objective or it is neutral. It has come to mean basically knowledge system which is controlled by few corporations to promote their interest. The kind of research, for example, that is done today -- take the example of genetic engineering again. It has been promoted as a solution to world’s hunger. Now we know that they grow enough food to feed people around the world. I mean, right now we grow enough food to provide over 2,720 kilocalories per person around the world. This is enough to feed everyone in the world, enough to make us fat. But, when we have technology being introduced and being produced are promoted because of corporate interests, you cannot talk about the technology being neutral or being objective. It has a certain rationale behind it, which is to promote the corporate interest of those corporations that are promoting the sciences. We have seen that in the academia. If you look at the research agendas, they are being dictated by companies such as Monsanto, Bayer and the rest.

by Anuradha Mittal

Sep 9, 2006 4:40:00 PM cite

Ashok Gangadean: We think of science as the measure of objectivity, but modern philosophical research has made it very clear that we’re always in some kind of lens of interpretation. And that the lens of science too is a particular lens, not the only one. And there are different forms of interpreting reality and processing reality. And clearly, when we cross our cultures and different worlds, what is called science, and so-called western culture may not see ayurvedic medicine or yoga science or acupuncture as alternative sciences, in a different sense, with a different lens. So, the question of objectivity of science, we have to realize that the ultimate question of objectivity for the global wisdom is that if we are in an egoized lens of ego-mental minding, the reality that appears to us is artificially processed through that lens. And it appears that science is deeply lodged within those old ego-centric habits of processing the world in an objectified field. We call it scientific materialism or reductionism but there’s a deeper word and diagnosis. It’s ego-mentalism. And the question I would raise is, to what extent is what we call science still ego-mental in its structure and needs to mature into a more integral, holistic way of understanding the unified field of reality, which is a place of deep objectivity and truth? And I think that science is going through a profound shift now into a deeper space, a deeper grammar, a deeper lens of interconnectivity. And therefore objectivity and truth. So, we’re still in a kind of adulterous form of egocentric minding patterns dominating the enterprise of science. And making it in that respect localized and subjective. And not as objective and deep as it might be.

by Ashok Gangadean

Sep 9, 2006 4:40:00 PM cite

Audrey Kitagawa: Science is about that body of knowledge that seeks to understand the natural laws which govern our lives, which govern the natural order of the universe, of the planets. And so as we understand natural laws and began to understand more and more how natural laws function, then until such -- we, is -- really speaks to our evolving understanding, that we are not in a state of fully comprehending natural laws and how they work. But it is an open field of discovery. And so long as our full comprehension is not there, there's a subjective element involved in interpretation. And in our understandings and different understandings that we may have at different points in time, at the different points of comprehension of natural laws. And so although the science is supposed to be objective insofar as relating what the facts of the natural laws are, our comprehension is evolving, is developing, is growing, and to the extent that we have not fully understood these natural laws, the subjective element of interpretation of them continues to exist.

by Audrey Kitagawa

Sep 9, 2006 4:40:00 PM cite

Avi Primor: As objective as we want it to be. As objective as the scientists want it to be. As objective as society wants it to be. Science does not have a will. Science is a tool in our hands. We decide what is going to happen with it and in which direction it will develop. And if we make the wrong decision we will pay the price.

by Avi Primor

Sep 9, 2006 4:40:00 PM cite

Benjamin Fahrer: When we look at what science does, right? Science focuses in on something. It says okay, I have this water and it comes [inaudible]. It comes up with something, some kind of synthesis -- a hypothesis. And in science systematically tries to disprove that, in which it’s stating. So for science to be objective, when it is all about being inquisitive within what it is stating and trying to disproved. I would say the investigation of what science is focusing on could be objective. But we also have many different types of sciences and we need to look at objective science. That would be good one. Science needs to become more objective, science needs to become more objective, and can it? And can it? We can have objective scientists.

by Benjamin Fahrer

Sep 9, 2006 4:40:00 PM cite

Benson Venegas: Well Janina, I hope you're around here because it say that you're from Berlin and we are right here in Berlin. What is strange with this is that the lack of objectivity in science doesn't have to do with scientists or necessarily with the way we approach science. It has to be with the way we finance science. Science is not necessarily - it's becoming to be a money driven activity, and where the people that puts the money are the one that setting the priorities for, or setting the condition of how science should be applied or how science should create or focus their priorities. What is very interesting from our perspective is that every day we see that certain things that are important for humanity, like certain disease or health problems, they have less and less money for scientists to make the research and find a cure for many of the problems - health problems or sickness that humanity’s suffering. But there are other money and resources that are available to other type of research, that maybe it's more potentially, or have a great more economic, you know, profit for a company or a corporation that carry out research, scientific research. So I think we need to rethink the way we're doing things, and in some way government has a very important role to really try and diversify the [inaudible] that we're doing science and research in our society to be able also to find solution to other problems in the - in our community that necessarily that needs research that needs scientific approach to find some of these solutions, but maybe there is not enough money for this purpose.

by Benson Venegas