Did I get your attention with that headline?  Good; that was the point.  What I actually mean is that it is impossible to be truly objective; we are always biased, in one way or another.  Why I believe so is the subject of this post.

First, let’s be clear about what it means to be objective. Merriam-Webster has this to say about the definition of ‘objective’:

expressing or dealing with facts or conditions as perceived without distortion by personal feelings, prejudices, or interpretations <objective art>

The key is the use of the phrase ‘without distortion’.  So I pose the question: is it possible to be completely disassociated from personal feelings, prejudices and interpretations?  In other words, is it possible to be completely free from bias?

No. We are all a product of our senses – the input that we receive from outside. Even assuming that there is some form of absolute truth out there, we will necessarily distort it through our own sensory biases.  This applies to bodies of knowledge too: for all this knowledge is ultimately human knowledge, bound by our own perceptions.

 

Case Study: Science

 

Science is simply another way of describing the world.  Again from Merriam-Webster, Science is:

 knowledge or a system of knowledge covering general truths or the operation of general laws especially as obtained and tested through scientific method

where the Scientific Method is defined as

principles and procedures for the systematic pursuit of knowledge involving the recognition and formulation of a problem, the collection of data through observation and experiment, and the formulation and testing of hypotheses

The Scientific Method is the method that we have devised as being the most objective way of pursuing knowledge.  That said, it is important to realize that all this knowledge relies on observation as an essential component.  But do we know that, say, ‘the speed of light is constant’?  Is it an objective fact?

To the extent that this knowledge enables us to explain and predict phenomenon that we witness or measure, it is ‘fact’.  But how do we know that it accounts for all phenomenon?  We must not forget how certain the scientists of the 19th century were that Newtonian physics was the be-all and end-all of science, due to its tremendous predictive and explanatory power.  Thanks to Einstein and others, we know now that it is not the case; yet Newtonian physics is still very much in use, precisely because it has not lost its predictive and explanatory power in the vast majority of cases.  So to say that Newtonian physics has been proven ‘false’, and relativity and quantum physics ‘true’, is to miss the point.

 

Case Study: Mathematics

 

Even Mathematics, which one would expect to be the most objective field of knowledge, isn’t free from bias.  I’m referring to Gödel’s incompleteness theorems, which basically establish that it is impossible to prove that a mathematical system is consistent – free from contradictions – from within the system itself.  That means, in other words, that the mathematical system must rely on a set of axioms, some of which would contradict some of the others.  There is of course a much greater deal to this, as a quick overview with Google and Wikipedia reveal; but essentially, Mathematics as we know it, just like any other field of knowledge, is constructed and experienced by us, as humans, via our senses.  The underlying system, assuming there is one, may well be perfect in some way, but we do not know – and it may well be unknowable.

So Why Be Objective?

 

All that being said, objectivity is still a worthwhile ideal to strive towards.  We may not be able to rid ourselves completely of bias, but we can strive to be aware of such bias, and mitigate them as far as possible.  Just as it is arrogant to believe that anything can be completely unbiased, it is also arrogant to claim that, in effect, anything goes.  To cite a few examples:

• Science and Mathematics are so successful because they predict outcomes that we can rely on to conduct our own affairs, as noted earlier.
• Stereotypes, those old bugbears of subjectivity, find their uses because a majority of any group will have a high instance of that ‘stereotypical’ property – in effect, they are shortcuts, and useful ones in certain situations that demand a quick decision

So do strive be objective.  Just don’t claim that your ‘objective’ view is the final say of the matter.

P.S. Pictures courtesy of Wikimedia Commons, Flickr Commons and http://www.freeimageslive.co.uk.