Reply to comment

Normal
0
0
1
283
1617
13
3
1985
11.1282

0

0
0

         When we began transitioning our discussion to science and objectivity, the question was raised as to why science is commonly viewed as objective. I feel that people think of science as a discipline devoted to understanding how things work. People believe that regardless of whether or not we discover the “answer” through science, the thing scientists are examining will still continue working in the same manner and existing. Just because we do not understand the process does not mean that it doesn’t happen.  Scientific discoveries help define something concrete and something that already exists.  For this reason, people believe that science is objective and teleological as each inquiry brings us closer to understanding what is.
            In class, we completely disapproved this reasoning and argued for the subjective nature of science. During this discussion, it was suggested that gravity did not exist before Newton and that a tree does not make a sound if no one can hear it. For the reasons I mentioned above, I have to disagree with this assessment. Things exist regardless of whether we are there to understand them. For example, I do not completely understand how my body fights disease and yet, that does not mean that my immune system isn’t currently working. This brings me to another question concerning our definition of objectivity as “what you aspire for when you look for the commonalities among subjectivity.” If there does exist some fairly objective explanation of how the body fights disease, does that mean that my body abides by that objective explanation even though I personally am unfamiliar with the explanation?
Also, in class it was mentioned that a fact (or possibly idea…I can’t remember the wording) unique to one person is not likely to be objective. However, isn’t a fact that will ultimately end up being contextually right always going to start out as a fact unique for one person? When does something start being objective?