Aiming for Objectivity

The social and behavioral sciences have a long-standing, if not challenging aim, to explain and understand human personal and social behavior with objectivity.   This aim clearly has not been achieved over the course of development of these disciplines, but the aim is a principle in process, as is the aim of objectivity for any of the sciences.


In recent weeks in our introductory sociology and anthropology classes we have looked at this principle, to understand how it informs the disciplines themselves, as well as to understand the subject of these disciplines-- human societies and cultures--more effectively.  In at least one particular class the challenge was illustrated through a student's comment about global warming and climate change.  In response to a general point being made about trying to understand the impact of western society on "non-western" peoples and cultures, a student volunteered the comment that "science suggests global warming is just the latest point in a natural cycle the earth has been going through since time began."  I welcomed the comment and tried to incorporate it into the flow of the discussion-- about culture change, the impact of industrial cultures on other peoples of the world, and how we study such things; but I didn't feel it appropriate to move at that point into a deeper discussion that is needed about global warming and the role of humans in changing the face of the earth.  


It is a key point however-- just as it is a key point when someone makes confident comments about evolutionary theory being "only a theory," or "unsettled science"-- to return to for the very reasons and ways that the social and behavioral sciences strive for objective understanding.  Whether we call ourselves "sciences" or not, we are not just aiming to be camps of opinions. Instead we are aiming to achieve understanding of what it means to be human, beyond ideological assertions or popularized opinion.  We have called ourselves "sciences" because, among other things, we join with a community of others who work together in sharing research and analysis that aim to build on scientific principles and practices. Through these shared principles and practices, we strive to clarify what we say we "know" in contrast to what we say we "believe" or what we simply hold uncritically to be true .


In this community of science, there is then a general consensus--- not just based on majority opinion, but on shared understanding based on scientific research, that points clearly in certain directions--on things like biological evolution (including evolution of humans), and the impact of human activity on significant global climate change.  


So when a participant in an introductory class of anthropology, for example, asserts that current evidence of climate change simply reflects a natural cycle of the earth and its processes, I don't want to dismiss the claim offhandedly. Instead I aim to engage that participant as well as the rest of the class in the challenge of understanding where this kind of claim ("evolution is ONLY a theory...,"  "SOME scientists say that humans have not caused global warming...") comes from politically and scientifically.  I also aim to engage participants in understanding what our scientific community does in fact conclude, at this point, in its current understanding.  


We seem to be in an era, in fact, where intellectual discipline and integrity is being devalued over folksy appeal to the so-called "common man" (gender specification here is deliberate). But ultimately, when you enter into a class in the social sciences, it is about learning to engage one another, in the classroom and out, in dialogue and investigation that moves beyond opinionating.  It is about learning to develop disciplines (habits of thinking, questioning, analyzing, understanding) that help to inform the beliefs and principles through which our actions are formed.  This is certainly a challenge in an era where public figures risk political marginalization when they assert that they "believe in science," or other such figures routinely treat sloppily stated fictions (historical or otherwise) as facts.    ....all the more reason to learn how to think and understand more clearly, more objectively, more carefully, in this challenging time.