Objectivity in Science: Consequences of Emotion in Scientific Research
3-1 Discussion: Objectivity in Science
Thus far, you have learned about the fundamentals of scientific inquiry, including the scientific method. An important scientific principle is that in order to uncover truths about the natural world, scientific inquiry should be free from biases, emotions, and value judgments. This includes methods, results, theories, and scientists themselves. But there is always a human element in science that can affect objectivity. Reflect on what you learned from the module resources and respond to the following prompts. You will use your news story when participating in the discussion.
Create one initial post and follow up with at least two response posts.
For your initial post, address the following:
Can scientists ever be completely objective when conducting research? Why or why not? Support your argument with course resources.
What might be the consequences (positive and/or negative) of emotion in scientific research?
For your response posts, address the following:
Extend your peers' responses with additional examples about objectivity in science. What ideas did your peers present that you had not considered before?
Use the following article on the website below.
For cardiovascular disease patients, more physical activity may be better, research suggests
https://www(dot)sciencedaily(dot)com/releases/2021/12/211202141458.htm
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1 Can scientists ever be completely objective when conducting research? Why or why not? Support your argument with course resources.
Whether scientists can ever be completely objective in research depends on the scientists themselves. Hence, the answer is both yes and no. Scientists can remain utterly objective while conducting research when uninfluenced by personal factors, such as emotions and career objectives. The personal factors prevent them from collecting and interpreting the data while following the best practice in research methodology.
The conditions of bias can also be influenced by previous knowledge and the reluctance to accept novelty. An example of this is the article on cardiovascular disease patients. The benefits of exercise are already known in previous literature. Still, the timeframe by which an individual should be exercising is not yet established, or there are arguments on this matter. However, a recent study suggests that exercise’s benefits are forever for cardiovascular disease patients and that the plateau of the benefits only applies to healthy individuals (PLOS, 2021).
In this case, researchers who cannot remain objective and still believe obsolete knowledge will become subjective. However, those who view and analyze the new data uninfluenced by other matters can be completely objective.
2 What might be the...
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