Even if you do not remember many facts of secondary school biology, you are likely to remember the cells required to create children: eggs and sperm. Perhaps you can photograph a group of sperm cells that fight each other in The race to be the first to penetrate the egg.
For decades, scientific literature describes human pregnancy in this way, with cells Reverse the roles of women and men In society. He believed that the egg was negative while sperm was active.
Over time, the scholars realized this Sperm is very weak To penetrate the eggs and it Union is more mutualWith the two cells work together. It is not a coincidence that these results were made in the same era More gender roles equality They were taking.
world Ludok Felk It is attributed to the description of science first as a cultural practice in the thirties of the twentieth century. Since then, understanding in building this scientific knowledge has always been consistent with cultural standards of its time.
Despite these ideas, through political differences, people seek to continue to claim scientific objectivity: the idea that science must be unbiased, rational and separated from cultural values and beliefs.
When the doctorate entered a program in neuroscience in 2001, I felt the same way. But reading a book for biology Ann Vostto-Sterling is called “Body sex“Put me into a different path. He systematically exposed the idea of scientific objectivity, which indicates how cultural ideas about sex, sex and sex were inseparable from scientific results. By time, time I won the doctorateI started looking more completely in my research, and integrating the social, historical and political context.
From the questions that scientists start, to the beliefs of people who are searching for research, to the options in research design, to the interpretation of the final results, the most constantly informed cultural ideas. What if the non -biased science is impossible?
The emergence of the idea of scientific objectivity
The flag grew to be Strengthening objectivity In the Western University system only over the past hundreds of years.
In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, some Europeans gained a traction in the defiance of the religious system depicted. Unification of the university system Shifts From trust in religious leaders who explain the word “God”, to trust in “man” to make special rational decisions, to trust in scholars who explain “nature”. The university system has become an important position to legitimize claims through theories and studies.
Previously, people invented knowledge about their world, but there were no strict limits between what is now called humanities, such as history, English, philosophy and science, including biology, chemistry and physics. Over time, with questions arose on how to trust political decisions, people Divide specializations In categories: subjective against the goal. The division came with the creation of others Bilateral oppositionIncluding the emotional/rational division closely related. These categories were not simply opposite, but in the hierarchical sequence with objectivity and rationality as superior.
A closer look shows that these bilateral systems are arbitrary and self -self.
Science is a human endeavor
Science is the fields of study conducted by humans. These people, who are called scientists, are part of the cultural systems just like anyone else. We scientists are part of families and have political views. We watch the same films and television programs and listen to the same music that is not random. We read the same newspapers, chant for the same sports teams and enjoy the same hobbies as others.
It is clear that all of these “cultural” parts of our lives will affect how scientists deal with our functions and what we consider “a healthy sense” that is not interrogated when we experience our experiences.
In addition to individual scientists, the types of studies that are conducted are based on What questions are related Or not By dominant societal standards.
For example, in a doctorate in neuroscience, I saw how various assumptions over the hierarchical sequence could affect specific experiences and even the entire field. neurology It focuses on the so -called central nervous system. The same name describes a hierarchical model, with one part of the “responsible” body of the rest. Even inside the central nervous system, there was a conceptual hierarchical sequence with the brain that controls the spinal cord.
My research looked at what happened in the vicinity of the muscles, but the prevailing model had the brain at the top. Granted The idea that the system needs a president Mirrors Cultural assumptions. But I realized that we could analyze the system differently and ask different questions. Instead of the brain at the top, a different model can focus on how the entire system communicates and works together in coordination.
Each experience also has baked assumptions – things that are considered a foreground, including definitions. Scientific experiments can become self -fulfillment prophecies.
For example, billions of dollars were spent on trying to determine sexual differences. However, the definition of males and females is almost not mentioned in these research papers. At the same time, the evidence is escalating that these bilateral groups are A modern invention It is not based on clear physical differences.
Related to: Is there really a difference between male and female brains? The emerging science reveals the answer.
But the categories are tested several times so that some differences are discovered at the end without putting these results in a statistical model together. Often, the so -called Negative results That does not specify a big difference It has not been reported. sometimes, Paining analysis Based on multiple studies that have been discussed in the same question, these statistical errors reveal, as in Look for sex differences related to sex. Similar patterns of slippery definitions that end up to enhance the assumptions granted with raceand Sexual activity And other classes of social difference.
Finally, the final results of experiments can be explained in several different ways, with the addition of another point where cultural values are injected into the final scientific conclusions.
Stability on science when there is no objective
Vaccines. miscarriage. Climate change. Sex categories. Science in the center of most of the hottest political discussions today. While there is a lot of disagreement, it appears that the desire to separate politics and science is shared. On both sides of the political gap, there are accusations that scholars of the other side cannot be trusted by political bias.
Consider the recent controversy over the American centers to combat diseases and prevention prevention. Minister of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Junior everything Members of the Consulting Committee for Evidence practices, saying they are biased, while some Democratic lawmakers have argued again To move it placed in the place of those who will be biased to pay its skeptical agenda in the vaccine.
If the removal of all bias is impossible, how does people create the knowledge that can be trusted?
Understanding that all knowledge is created through cultural processes that allows different or more facts to coexist. You see this reality on working on many of the most controversial topics today. However, this does not mean that you should believe all the facts on an equal footing – and this is called the group Cultural relativity. This perspective ignores people’s need to reach decisions together about truth and reality.
Instead, critical scientists provide democratic operations for people to determine important values and for any purposes that must be developed. For example, some of my work focused on expanding a Dutch model in the 1970s Science storeWhere community groups come to university settings to exchange their concerns and need to help identify research business schedules. Other researchers have documented others Cooperative practices between Marginalized scientists and societies or Politics changesIncluding operations for more inputs of multidisciplinary or democracy, or both.
I claim that a more accurate view of science is that pure objectivity is impossible. Once you leave the myth of objectivity behind it, the way forward is not simple. Instead of believing in a fully known science, we face the fact that humans are responsible for what is being discussed, how to search for it, and what are the conclusions that are extracted from such research.
With this knowledge, we have the opportunity to deliberate societal values that reach scientific investigations. This requires decisions on how people reach agreements on these values. These agreements do not always need to be universal, but instead they can depend on the context of who may affect a specific study. Although they are not simple, the use of these ideas, which have been acquired for decades of studying science from inside and outside both inside and outside, may force a more honest conversation between political positions.
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