>Perhaps, but as one practicing scientist to another, only a foolish
scientist would allow his bias to influence the way he would interpret data.
The Harvard astronomer Harlow Shapley said: "A hypothesis or theory is clear,
decisive, and positive but it is believed by none but the man who created
it. Experimental findings [facts] , on the other hand are messy, inexact
things
which are believed by everyone except the man who did the work."
Ann Roe said" I think many scientists are genuinely unaware of the extent,
or even the fact of...personal involvement, and themselves accept the myth
of impersonal objectivity"
Heisenberg asserted that only observable magnitudes must go into a theory
and chided Einstein that he himself had stressed this in formulating the
theory of gravity Einstein's response was classic: "Possibly I did use this
kind of
reasoning but it is nonsense all the same. Perhaps I could put it more
diplomatically by saying that it may be heuristically useful to keep in mind
what one has observed. But on principle it is quite wrong to try founding a
theory on observable magnitudes alone. In reality, the very opposite
happens. It is the theory which decides what we can observe"
The scientist who does not allow his bias to influence the interpretation
of his data is working in a vacuum. Why else would scientists explain away
data that obviously challenges their interpretation (fragile vertical plant
remains penetrating many layers) unless they already knew the deposit
represented tidal cycles and therefore the plants needed to be explained
otherwise. Why didn't they choose to use the plant data to challenge the
tidal interpretation. That's science. We eliminate the things that don't
agree with our presuppositions so that we can make progress. Why do you
think the method of multiple working hypotheses has never caught on even
though every scientist will admit in theory that is the best way to do
science? Its because it is too hard. Shapley is exactly right.
Art
http://biology.swau.edu