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Where is the line between objective science and subjective science? Is the work truly science if it is funded and heavily motivated by industry to increase the

Where is the line between objective science and subjective science? Is the work truly science if it is funded and heavily motivated by industry to increase the industry's profits? Or is it advertising and marketing masquerading as science, cloaking itself in claims of objectivity, when only we educated folk know to follow the money and the affiliations? If science is a set of methods and tools to discover truth, it does make sense that there are self-interested "parasites" which feed off this reputation for their own ends. Sadly, it does seem these parasites are bad for us: smoking, sugar, hydroxychloroquine, ivermectin, low-fat diet lies, not to mention cottage industries of fake internet reviews, bots, trolls, paid shills, who go on forums and social media to sell their snake oil.

fallingknife 5y ago
If that's the line, then there can be no objective science, as all funding organizations have motives beyond curiosity.
- praptak 5y ago
  Isn't it the perfect solution fallacy? Take a government funding basic research, with some hope there will be profit from this. Take an industry which damages public health and funds lies to cover this up. Both have motives beyond curiosity, yet I think that there is at least a chance that the government-funded research is objective.
  - wpietri 5y ago
    If you take it too far, sure. But I'd suggest that the notion of "objective" is itself the idea taken too far. In practice, we all have material interests in the world. I think it's much more useful to think of "objective" not as a binary or a destination that one arrives at. But more a direction, like "up", that one moves in.
    - jes 5y ago
      I think David Deutsch has suggested that to be objective is to be sincere in identifying and correcting errors in one’s analysis.
      - wpietri 5y ago
        I'm for that, but it's a very subjective definition of objectivity.
  - fallingknife 5y ago
    Well yeah, but industry has funded basic research with some hope there will be profit, and governments have damaged public health and lied to cover it up, so they're basically the same unless you happen to know the motive in a given case.
dmos62 5y ago
Ultimate truth discovery is the ideal, but in reality all science is biased or follows trends to some extent. Scientists aren't less susceptible to faults than the rest of us.
- BarryMilo 5y ago
  The reproduction crisis goes to show that objective science is much more myth than reality. Most people need the money, therefore they need the grants.
  - OneTimePetes 5y ago
    So much more objective science and thus progress needs tenure and randomized first grants?
BitwiseFool 5y ago
I sincerely believe the fact that English lacks a distinction between what you mentioned as 'objective' and 'subjective' science is part of the reason why we are in this mess. Science is not a monolith and while we have concepts like validity we lack the distinction between science which is likely to change (diet/nutrition, [xyz] reduces risk of cancer, most psychology research, etc.) and science which is basically law, like kinematics, chemistry, meteorology, etc. I'm actually struggling to articulate the concept simply because I lack the ability to cleanly categorize these things. To put it another way, a study published in an Evolutionary Psychology Journal is not as 'true' as Evolution itself. Despite this, the study benefits from all the clout established by the broader field.
- aniro 5y ago
  English does not lack this distinction. "Hard Sciences" refers to scientific inquiry that is empirical in nature and has results that can be reproduced and confirmed independently. eg: most physics and chemistry "Soft Science" refers to the rest. eg: psychology
  - ksdale 5y ago
    These categories exist, but parent's main example was diet/nutrition, which should fit into the hard science bucket because it's chemistry/biology, but currently involves a lot of soft science-y type studies because it's got so many moving parts. I'm not sure making a distinction like that is particularly useful, in any case. I think perhaps that people who have studied a lot of science can already make the distinction fairly easily, and having phrases like hard and soft science just serves to create assumptions where they needn't exist.
    - LeifCarrotson 5y ago
      Some would group biology into a soft science because the margins for error must be relaxed or softened; one cannot eliminate potentially confounding factors from a biological experiment because each organism is unique and fractally complex. Another categorization is the "natural sciences" and the "social sciences". Natural science is often split into "life science" and "physical science", again because biology is difficult.
kansface 5y ago
> If science is a set of methods and tools to discover truth Science, as practiced, is a process that consumes dollars and PhDs and outputs peer reviewed papers.

fallingknife 5y ago

If that's the line, then there can be no objective science, as all funding organizations have motives beyond curiosity.

praptak 5y ago
Isn't it the perfect solution fallacy? Take a government funding basic research, with some hope there will be profit from this. Take an industry which damages public health and funds lies to cover this up. Both have motives beyond curiosity, yet I think that there is at least a chance that the government-funded research is objective.
- wpietri 5y ago
  If you take it too far, sure. But I'd suggest that the notion of "objective" is itself the idea taken too far. In practice, we all have material interests in the world. I think it's much more useful to think of "objective" not as a binary or a destination that one arrives at. But more a direction, like "up", that one moves in.
  - jes 5y ago
    I think David Deutsch has suggested that to be objective is to be sincere in identifying and correcting errors in one’s analysis.
    - wpietri 5y ago
      I'm for that, but it's a very subjective definition of objectivity.
- fallingknife 5y ago
  Well yeah, but industry has funded basic research with some hope there will be profit, and governments have damaged public health and lied to cover it up, so they're basically the same unless you happen to know the motive in a given case.

dmos62 5y ago

Ultimate truth discovery is the ideal, but in reality all science is biased or follows trends to some extent. Scientists aren't less susceptible to faults than the rest of us.

BarryMilo 5y ago
The reproduction crisis goes to show that objective science is much more myth than reality. Most people need the money, therefore they need the grants.
- OneTimePetes 5y ago
  So much more objective science and thus progress needs tenure and randomized first grants?

BitwiseFool 5y ago

I sincerely believe the fact that English lacks a distinction between what you mentioned as 'objective' and 'subjective' science is part of the reason why we are in this mess. Science is not a monolith and while we have concepts like validity we lack the distinction between science which is likely to change (diet/nutrition, [xyz] reduces risk of cancer, most psychology research, etc.) and science which is basically law, like kinematics, chemistry, meteorology, etc. I'm actually struggling to articulate the concept simply because I lack the ability to cleanly categorize these things. To put it another way, a study published in an Evolutionary Psychology Journal is not as 'true' as Evolution itself. Despite this, the study benefits from all the clout established by the broader field.

aniro 5y ago
English does not lack this distinction. "Hard Sciences" refers to scientific inquiry that is empirical in nature and has results that can be reproduced and confirmed independently. eg: most physics and chemistry "Soft Science" refers to the rest. eg: psychology
- ksdale 5y ago
  These categories exist, but parent's main example was diet/nutrition, which should fit into the hard science bucket because it's chemistry/biology, but currently involves a lot of soft science-y type studies because it's got so many moving parts. I'm not sure making a distinction like that is particularly useful, in any case. I think perhaps that people who have studied a lot of science can already make the distinction fairly easily, and having phrases like hard and soft science just serves to create assumptions where they needn't exist.
  - LeifCarrotson 5y ago
    Some would group biology into a soft science because the margins for error must be relaxed or softened; one cannot eliminate potentially confounding factors from a biological experiment because each organism is unique and fractally complex. Another categorization is the "natural sciences" and the "social sciences". Natural science is often split into "life science" and "physical science", again because biology is difficult.

kansface 5y ago

> If science is a set of methods and tools to discover truth Science, as practiced, is a process that consumes dollars and PhDs and outputs peer reviewed papers.