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Objectivity of science

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Is Science truly objective? Why or why not? How does this affect Environment Sociology?

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The topic of the objectivity of science is discussed in this essay. This is also related to environmental sociology.

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Objectivity of Science

What is Science? Simply put, science is a system or process of investigating reality, our world, for the purpose of establishing knowledge via theories that can explain why things are the way they are and to help humanity discover more in a manner that can be validated again and again. This validation happens because of the scientific process. The scientific process of enquiry follows this process: establishing a hypothesis, based on this hypothesis, a main question or problem is put together and a research design is then created. This research design includes the gathering of data which is then analysed for the purpose of proving/disproving the hypothesis. If the results prove the hypothesis, a theory is established. Because it follows a process, scientists can recreate the research to test the validity of the process and it's results. This is the basis of the idea that science is objective - because scientific knowledge is created not to prove a position but to discover the truth or verissimility of an object of study. But the notion of objectivity is partly tainted due to the fact that scientists can operate following personal biases and opinions about a particular topic of research. Objective science is one that pushes for testability and reproducibility in which the process is clear and the scientists take on the study without any other purpose and influences but rather being driven only to discover what can be discovered, not to prove what they believe to be ...

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Xenia Rochelle Jones, MA, PhD (IP)
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  • MA, Open University, Milton Keynes, UK
  • Certificate, Geva Ulpan (via Universita Tel Aviv)
  • BA, University of the Philippines
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