Within the field of molecular biology, an investigation might be very narrowly defined, e.g. designing an antigen to provoke an antibody to study it - or it may be broadly defined, e.g. rise of syntactical autonomy (Rocha, Pattee et al.)
I would imagine that the more narrowly defined investigations would have established protocols which entail many of the usual restrictions.
It's about the investigation much more so than the discipline.
Okay. What's the criteria for deciding which investigation need to conform to that standard, and which don't? We've got examples of investigations that are being done wrong because they're not objective, and others that seem perfectly acceptable even though it's admitted that they are quite subjective.