June 11: Objectivity?

 Today in class we learned about objectivity and what that means in terms of science. Objectivity from what I gathered basically refers to the idea that science should be objective and shouldn't be influenced by outside opinions, ideals, and etc.


 Why Objectivity Matters, and How to Foster It - Gerber Leadership Advisors

An example (video): Studio (instructuremedia.com):

The video showed a dog licking a baby bunny in the bathroom of this person's house. 

My first reaction to the video was that it was cute and that the dog was very gentle. I saw the behavior as caring from the dog and calm from the bunny. The dog was just casually licking the bunny and did not put much force behind it making me think this. I also noticed that the bunny did not seem to give off any body language that was scared. I thought that maybe the dog was cleaning the bunny, being friendly, or maybe was being coerced to lick the bunny by the human. 

With my reaction it was clear I had a bias. Personally, I love dogs and I have known many gentle and loving dogs, so my initial reaction reflected this. To improve my objectivity, I would need to learn more about bunny and dog behavior to fully understand what may be happening. I am not an expert, and it could be that the bunny may actually be uncomfortable or scared and I just didn't notice. I could also be more objective by comparing ideas with someone else to see what else may be occurring. 

After watching a second time and discussing with others I started to lean towards the idea that the human may have more to do with the scenario. With how the camera is placed and the odd location it almost seems like it is set up. I feel like I would need to be present in person at the event to be able to tell what is really happening. 


What I learned:

I learned that Bias is everywhere. There is no way to entirely get rid of bias. I also learned that bias can go both ways. Bias can cause research that is actually good to be ignored as well as bad research to be spread all around. In the end bias can't be gotten rid of so you just have to find ways to work with it in order to get the most objective research you can. 




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