scalliano wrote:But some things as general rules are set in stone and can by visibly observed by anyone, such as anatomical differences.
That's actually a great example of
ignoring the latest ( or, should I say, "latest," since it isn't all that new ) research - you're taking a lot of stuff related to the effects of
hormones and to applying it to sex, when those're only related by the fact that sexual organs have a part in the person's hormonal balance. But diet, genetics, medical conditions, heck, even the environment are all important factors in a person's hormonal balance, and this is why you see so many men with breasts despite those being thought of as woman-only - and yes, those are actual breasts, they're formed by having a high amount of estrogen.
This isn't even some niche technicality, either: if this wasn't the case, then women couldn't make use of steroids, but they clearly can. And they've clearly shown exactly
how malleable the human body is - just about the only thing that isn't is the stuff you'd have to pull down peoples' pants to observe, and even then, intersex people are a thing.
scalliano wrote:"But, scall, everything is agenda-driven!" To an extent, yes. The earliest scientists actually believed that they were doing God's work, for example. But while true objectivity may be impossible, it must always be the primary goal. If it isn't, be prepared for people to notice, because they will call you out on it. If they do, listen to their concerns, don't shout them down and bash them on Twitter.
We aren't really all that much better nowadays, y'know. Sure, being able to pick apart blatantly agenda-driven research might make you feel smarter than people of the past, but that doesn't actually mean all the other research isn't also heavily agenda-driven.
I mean, granted, it's a lot harder to fault someone with an agenda as straightforward and resonant with their research as "strawberries and milk make an amazing fertilizer" than someone who's doing research for the sake of demonizing the lower class, but that doesn't actually mean that they aren't going to let it affect their research through ways they might not even be fully conscious of.
dpJudas wrote:The entire point of the scientific method is to try describe things using indisputable facts. It relies on a systematic way of building up a testable theory and then apply tests to try disprove it and use that as a feedback mechanism to get increasingly closer to the correct answer.
You say this as a human, speaking of a system created by a human, which relies entirely on human perception to observe the results of certain actions which only test a theory at certain locations, in a certain time frame, with specific conditions that may be, unwittingly or not, those that produce an exceptional result.
Oh, and this is just what the researchers observe. There's a helluva lot more layers to
actually writing down and recording all of this.
dpJudas wrote:The tests may sometimes be incomplete or lead to the wrong conclusions, but that in no way makes science subjective - over time the subjective nature of humans doesn't matter as the evidence against a theory continue to increase it will eventually fail. Or rather typically generate new theories that factor in the gained knowledge.
This doesn't so much point towards sciences being objective so much as the "ultimate" science being objective, which I can't deny. What I can deny, though, is that we're anywhere close to that point, nor do I doubt we're even physically capable of reaching it. I'm not even sure if our artificial intelligences would be able to reach it - after all, once we manage to pull them to stage where they could actually take the role of a researcher, chances are we'll calibrate them to perceive the world and think similarly to us just from the sheer fact that doing otherwise would result in us mistrusting their results. And, well, because to a lot of people, we're the best we've got in terms of what an intelligent being is, even as we get more and more reason to believe that our intelligence has a lot less unique qualities than the humancentric thoughts of the past.
EDIT:
scalliano wrote:We can only form opinions based on what we know to be correct.
what