Why science is not objective | Stephen John » IAI TV (2023)

We view science as an objective representation of the world, free from political and other biases. But things are not that simple. Evidence alone doesn't tell you when you have enough evidence to support a claim, so scientists sometimes have to make judgments that depend on ethical and political values. This finding undermines our understanding of science.objectivityas worthless. But all is not lost, argues Stephen John.

"Social distancing and face masks must remain FOREVER, says Susan Michie, member of the communist SAGE committee."daily mailThe implication was clear: Because she's a communist with ID, Susan Michie isn't to be trusted. When her politics were brought up by an interviewer, Michie's response wassimply: "You don't ask other scientists about politics, so I like to talk about science, which is my job, and I limit myself to that." For Michie, politics is one thing, science is another.

One way to sum up this mini-controversy is in terms of objectivity: the Mail claims Michie can't be objective, but says she can be. We often think that scientists should be objective and associate scientific objectivity with "value-freedom". We believe that a scientific claim is objective if the justification for that claim does not depend on any ethical or political value. We call a scientist objective when he does not allow his values ​​to influence his reasoning or arguments. These notions of good science as value-free relate to a broader notion of science that informs us of how the world really is, devoid of comforting illusions. This image can also explain why science should play an important role in politics. Effective strategies must be based on our best understanding of the world. Good, objective scientists tell us how the world is. Precisely because they achieve this perspective by ignoring values, they can act as neutral arbiters in politics. So there's a nice package of ideas that combines politics, science, objectivity and value freedom that explains why we care if Michie can leave her communism at the door.

There's just one problem: this picture is fake.

There is no way to do science without anticipating or anticipating an ethical, political, or economic point of view.

How science is charged with values

The example above perfectly sums up a common problem when thinking about science, politics and politics. Scientific advisers play a central role in policy formulation. In the Covid-19 pandemic, UK leaders have stressed that they are "following the science". Given their power, it seems important that scientists do not allow their advice to be influenced by their own political, ethical, or economic values. It would be deeply undemocratic for Michie to introduce communism into politics through the back door of the Scientific Council, as the Mail suggests. And that seems a valid concern, even if communism is a good idea. On the other hand, scientists are of course human beings with needs, desires, passions and interests. Can they prevent values ​​from influencing their claims?

Many philosophers of science now say that this is impossible: scientific reasoning cannot be value-free. Notice how strong these statements are. There are many instances where scientists' ethical or political values ​​have influenced their science. A famous example is the 19th-century "discovery" of "Drapetomania" - a psychological condition that caused slaves to flee the plantations. In our view, the "science" of the curtain craze was consciously or unconsciously driven by the values ​​and interests of the affluent white establishment. The concern of philosophers, however, is not only that too much "science" is influenced by values. It's not even that it's hard to avoid that science is value-biased, or that it's hard to tell if science is value-biased, or that decisions about what to research reflect economic values could. Rather, the core of the scientific justification must be influenced by values. Running away" is valuable, "Smoking causes lung cancer" or "Covid-19 is spreading." Why think that and what does it mean for the relationship between science and politics?

How much proof that a claim is true should we ask for before we can say that the claim was justified?

When is enough proof enough?

Perhaps the simplest and most powerful argument for an inescapable role of values ​​in scientific justification appeals to "inductive risk". All scientific knowledge is inductive; Strictly speaking, it goes beyond our evidence. For example, although we have a large body of evidence that smoking causes lung cancer, we cannot be 100% certain of this conclusion. Maybe, just maybe, something else explains the patterns we're seeing. This simple fact poses a problem: how much evidence that a claim is true should we require before we say that the claim was justified? Science cannot answer the question of how right “right enough” is. There is no fact on earth like "Only accept claims if you are at least 95% sure".

The more evidence we ask for, the lower our chances of a false positive (accepting a claim that is actually false). That's a good thing, too, because responding to false claims is pointless at best and damaging at worst. However, asking for too much evidence comes at a price: an increased risk of false negatives (not accepting claims that are actually true). This can be a problem because not accepting true claims can also be costly. The main claim of the recent philosophy of science, based on the arguments of Heather Douglas, is that the only correct way to establish any degree of certainty is to think about the ethical and practical costs of these various errors. The higher the costs associated with false positives, the more certainty we should demand. The higher the costs associated with false negatives, the less certainty we should demand. When we do science, we need to think about the unscientific implications of saying a claim is justified.

Think of an example. In March 2020 the UK Government had to decide whether to accept the statement 'Covid-19 risks overloading the NHS'. They had some evidence for this, but that evidence was uncertain, complex, and contradictory. How much evidence would they have had to ask for before accepting the claim? The less evidence they asked for, the greater the likelihood of a false alarm leading to massive and unnecessary damage to the economy. The more evidence they asked for, the greater the chance of a false negative, which would lead to unnecessary deaths. Many people now feel that the government got that balance wrong: they waited too long. I don't know if that's correct. It is clear that these concerns express not only a scientific but also an ethical or political judgment about the right balance between economic and public health goals, the nature of government responsibility, and so on.

Therefore, scientific justification following “inductive risk” arguments must be value-laden, because decisions about how right is “right enough” must be based on broad ethical claims. Note that the argument does not say that these choices must always be conscious or explicit. Instead, scientists mostly solve their inductive risk problems by invoking convention. For example, statistical approaches that minimize false positives are often built into statistical computer programs. The strength of the argument is that these conventions may themselves presuppose or imply contestable ethical values. Someone born and raised eating meat may reach for the chicken drumstick without thinking, but that doesn't mean eating meat is an ethically neutral activity.