Are you objective?

Hi, LamarkNewAge.How do we tell if someone is being objective?Person A peripherally mentions, in a neutral fashion, that race can influence political views.Person B responds with a fairly long post subtitled "One issue I take with your comments," in which he expresses a position on which race takes the anti- stance, and uses that as a springboard to help express his opinions on other semi-related political topics.This is probably a good sign that Person B is not being entirely objective with regards to the discussion at hand.The second piece of evidence is that Person B is relying on personal anecdotes to support his argument.-----Everyone has biases that affect their views on certain topics. Objectivity means we can recognize our own biases and account for them when we report our conclusions.

Hi, NoNukes. This is a rather interesting (and even somewhat poignant) comment in my mind. Subconsciously, I try to avoid forming opinions at all, because I'm afraid that my opinions will create biases. I've been involved in university discussion groups where people have tried to convince me that it's okay --- desirable, even --- to form opinions and fight for them, even if they turn out to be wrong. I guess the idea is that we should acknowledge that scientists are individually flawed and biases, but that the free-market economy if ideas will be objective enough to weed out the wrong ideas whether or not the individuals are being objective.When I'm in the minority (e.g., among my devout-Mormon family over Christmas), I tend to get the nagging feeling that perhaps I am too confident in the views I have developed, and that it's time to reconsider them. I feel like this is a good thing overall (although it can be very stressful), because I am able to repeatedly reaffirm my conclusions even though my confidence in myself is regularly shaken by it.