The Myth of the Objective Scientist

Evolution News and Views ^ | January 11, 2016 | David Klinghoffer

[Heartlander]

The Myth of the Objective Scientist

David Klinghoffer January 11, 2016 11:31 AM | Permalink

Though rare, it's gratifying to see someone in the media pulling back the covers that normally hide the passions and prejudices that drive scientists, just like they do everyone else. Writing about a recent book by Alice Dreger, Toby Young in the London Spectator considers the career of anthropologist Napoleon Chagnon who was long vilified by his colleagues (though more recently rehabilitated). His offense? He cast doubt on what Young calls the "myth of the noble savage," a bedrock notion of progressivism:

How much longer can the liberal left survive in the face of growing scientific evidence that many of its core beliefs are false? I'm thinking in particular of the conviction that all human beings are born with the same capacities, particularly the capacity for good, and that all mankind's sins can be laid at the door of the capitalist societies of the West. ...This romanticism underpins all progressive movements, from the socialism of Jeremy Corbyn to the environmentalism of Caroline Lucas, and nearly every scientist who challenges it provokes an irrational hostility, often accompanied by a trashing of their professional reputations.

Liberals were too committed to their liberalism to allow the results of his research to stand, and so denounced and demonized him:

He has devoted his life to studying the Yanomamo, indigenous people of the Amazonian rain forest on the Brazilian-Venezuelan border, and his conclusions directly challenge the myth of the noble savage. 'Real Indians sweat, they smell bad, they take hallucinogenic drugs, they belch after they eat, they covet and at times steal their neighbour's wife, they fornicate, and they make war,' Chagnon told a Brazilian journalist. His view of the Yanomamo people is summed up by the title he gave to his masterwork on the subject: The Fierce People.

...

In 2000, in a book called Darkness in El Dorado, the journalist Patrick Tierney accused Chagnon and his collaborator James Neel of fomenting wars among rival tribes, aiding and abetting illegal gold miners, deliberately infecting the Yanomamo with measles and paying subjects to kill each other. Shockingly, these charges were taken at face value and widely reported in liberal publications like the New Yorker and the New York Times. (A headline in the Guardian read: -- 'Scientist "killed Amazon Indians to test race theory".') Many of Chagnon's colleagues turned on him, including the American Anthropological Association, which set up an task force to investigate. Chagnon was not allowed to defend himself and this task force published a report 'confirming' several allegations. As a result, Chagnon was forced into early retirement.

This should all sound familiar. Whether the field is anthropology or evolutionary biology, whether the context is science or journalism, human beings are subject to worldview-driven bias. Elites in particular can react furiously when their bias is challenged. A related problem is that just as much as liberals are devoted to their noble savage, they are perhaps even more devoted to the myth of the objective scientist. In this perspective, scientists are special, distinctively noble, quite like the precious, peace-loving, environment-friendly indigenous peoples of the world but with a lab coat instead of a loincloth.

A vision of how the universe ought to look can blind us. In the current prestige view, physical existence ought to be driven, in the final analysis, by unguided forces to the exclusion of purpose, wisdom, or intelligence. All evidence must, therefore, be interpreted in that light, confirming the vision in a tight little circle.

Misled by the myth of objectivity, those in the media and in education are themselves blinded. And so you have a dynamic that goes beyond a vague confirmation bias to an absolute insistence that when it comes to certainties like Darwinian evolution, no challenge is permitted and anyone willing to consider counterevidence is demonized as a "creationist."

[Heartlander]

SEE ALSO: Making It All Up - The behavioral sciences scandal

[SkyDancer]

It depends on who gives the grant for what investigative study and who would benefit as to what the results are.

[sparklite2]

We live in a technological society powered by science, undergirded by the scientific method. Its benefits are obvious and everywhere ... except when it bumps up against one cherished belief or the other, then science is a big scam. Funny how that works.

[SeeSharp]

SEE ALSO: The Structure of Scientific Revolutions

[tacticalogic]

Though rare, it's gratifying to see someone in the media pulling back the covers that normally hide the passions and prejudices that drive scientists, just like they do everyone else.

The media, you say?

Regularly exposing everyone's biases except for scientists, you say?

Color me skeptical.

[SeeSharp]

SEE ALSO: War Before Civilization: The Myth of the Peaceful Savage

[Heartlander]

FYI

[SC_Pete]

The scientific method has been replace by the funding method.

[DungeonMaster]

Bookmark for my college son.

[sparklite2]

What took you so long? LOL
Global warming, like evolution, is a fact.
But the rate of it is so slow as to be inconsequential, and in fact, may be preventing the next ice age. To trash our economies in reaction to it would be idiotic.

[Heartlander]

So what’s the problem? You obviously agree that there is political bias in science...

[sparklite2]

My comment had to do more with the creationist thrust of the article than politics.

[tacticalogic]

My comment had to do more with the creationist thrust of the article than politics.

You were expecting objectivity?

[Jayster]

This is how Objectivity works with the Global Warming “alarmist” group of Scientists.

*We know that the earth is getting hot! Oh soooo very hot!

*We will do only research to prove this

*We will make up shit to prove us right and discount any and all evidence to the contrary.

*We will exploit the ignorance of the population.

[marktwain]

I consider “War Before Civilization” a must read for every educated person.

[Heartlander]

...no challenge is permitted and anyone willing to consider counterevidence is demonized as a "creationist."

Yes, those who demonize with the creationist label do so because it bumps up against one cherished belief or the other. I see where you were going there...

[RobbyS]

Well, although the Church was blamed for Galileo’s treatment, the fact is that the Churchmen were moved more by their scientific biases than by their dogmatic ones. All were Aristoteleans, who simply could not accept Galileo’s view that mathematical models provide a true as opposed to a hypothetical description of reality. It took a hundred years before the Church came around to the right view, by which time, by which time, however, many scientists, and more publicists, had come around to the claim that only mathematics provided a true description of reality. If there is anyone who is more vain and inclined to bigotry than a theologian, it is probably a philosopher with this view of science.

[TBP]

We are born with the capacity for good choices or not — and it’s all up to the individual’s choice — not “the system.”

[Do the math]

In mathematics, it is either correct or it is garbage. The grant money that I earned for research had nothing to do with any political agenda. I was a climate denier long before it was common. There are a lot of good scientists who only want the truth. Anyone who fakes data is not a real scientist.

[SC_Pete]

Climate Change is the biggest fraud ever perpetrated in the name of science. The purpose is to provide a global tax to fund world government Scientists all over the world have corrupted their results in order to support this criminal activity. For the most part, they are government grant recipients: NASA, NOAA, and the EPA. It’s disgraceful and they have severely damaged the credibility of the entire profession.