Hay Clifford,
Just couldn’t let this pass me by. Concerning the first paragraph of the “Point of View” blurb.

“As physicsists know better than anyone, the way we look at things determines what we see”

You know as well as I do that in physics there is a hard and fast reality. Things may look different as you go from one frame of reference to another but the rules for transforming from frame to frame are immutable, clearly and precisely outlined, similarly the predictive power of quantum mechanics has been astounding. We can say the probablity for x to occur is w%, y% and z%. Why do people in the humanities use physics as an analogy to their subject, by saying things like “the lesson of both relativity and quantum mechanics”? Why do they think that because things are “relative” or that their are probabilities in physics it is some sort of justification for things to be relative (note no quotation marks) in journalism or some other humanities subject, that an objective judgement is not possible because it’s impossible to say where some elementary particle is?

“Yet science and journalism are both frequently expected to be “objective”—a goal that is not only unattainable, but intrinsically fraudulent and ultimately counterproductive.”

WHAT?!
Fraudulent definition: http://encarta.msn.com/dictionary_/fraudulent.html.

Intrinsic definition:
http://encarta.msn.com/dictionary_/intrinsic.html

Objective definition: http://encarta.msn.com/dictionary_/objective.html

First, “frequently expected”???, whatever about journalism, isn’t science *always* expected to be objective?

Second, to be objective is “unattainable” and furthermore “instrinsically fraudulent”. In less flowery language we have the author saying “stating facts free of personal bias is not possible” and “is by nature designed to deceive”. huh? I would say: “stating facts with personal bias is designed to deceive”. He goes on to opine: that stating facts free of personal bias is “ultimately counterproductive”. So to have hard and fast facts does not help you, in fact it is a burden for you. Tell that to string theorists or to aid agencies in Louisiana.

Clifford if you go to this meeting, I hope that you will address the author of this blurb and correct his misconceptions.

Thanks guys….the teaser worked, evidently!

-cvj

Haha! Indeed.

Now that it’s time for our October Categorically Not!, I finally have a moment to respond to objections some people raised about my September blurb on the subject of Objectivity, or Point of View.

As a journalist who writes about science, I thought my colleagues could learn a thing or two about the nature of “objective truth” from physics. Objectivity is a word that journalists use a lot—but in my experience, scientists don’t, because it’s not a very useful term. Journalists believe that it’s possible (and desirable) to have zero point of view—that is, to look at the world from some privileged frame through which they see the unvarnished “truth.” What makes science strong, in my opinion, is that it doesn’t fall into that trap. What scientists say is: I made this measurement, and I got this result. Or, I solved an equation, and I got this solution. To say you have a “result” or “solution” without saying how you got it is meaningless. Even when I say the sky is blue, it’s understood that I am a human being whose retina is detecting certain wavelengths of light which are then being interpreted by my human brain in very specific ways. The sky is not “blue” to a snake or a dog or a bee (or if I look through a red filter).

Similarly, if I say the universe was created in a Big Bang (never mind the details) 13 billion or so years ago, there’s no reason anyone should believe me unless I point out that this particular “objective reality” is based on evidence from several very different points of view (cosmic microwave background, expansion, nucleosynthesis….). Journalists often fail to explain this—which is one reason I believe the whole ID issue has been so badly handled in the press. It’s not enough to say “most scientists think evolution is correct….” That leaves the reader in the position of choosing who to believe—the NAS, or the president, for example. It’s not so difficult, I think, to explain that evolution is an answer to specific questions about the fossil record, morphology, DNA, embryology, etc. But it’s rarely done.

What really seemed to get people’s goat (goats?) was my statement that how you look at something determines what you see. I fail to understand the problem. If I look at light with a certain kind of apparatus, it’s a wave; if I look with another, it’s a particle. Reality is always reality, but how we choose to ask the question does determine the answer. So the only way to get an “objective” answer to is say how you asked the question! (And if I’m viewing the world through the eyes of an educated middle aged white woman living in LA–which I am–then I’d better take that into account as well.)

An astronomer friend told me he was upset because my wording played into the hands of the “relativists” (not that kind); that it was understood as “code” to mean “there’s no reality,” or some such. But I’m really tired of other people telling me what my words mean—whether the subject is objectivity, “family values,” “culture of life,” “liberal,” “feminist,” or any of the rest.

So, yes. Objectivity—meaning looking at a situation from a supposedly privileged frame from which you can see the unbiased “truth” —is, as I said, “not only unattainable, but intrinsically fraudulent and ultimately counterproductive.” Science understands this; it’s journalism that has the problem.