Merchants Of Doubt By Helen Longino Values And Objectivity

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Initial response: My initial response to the question is yes, all criticism is important to the objectivity of science and must be taken into consideration. Philosophical context: To discuss this question I will use “Values and Objectivity” by Helen Longino along with actual studies involving scientific objectivity. In Longino’s work, she sets up the avenues for criticism of scientific work and explains why they are important. Objection 1: One of the main issues with using all criticism in science is the fact that not all criticism is worthy of being taken into consideration. This comes up as an issue in the book “Merchants of Doubt” when talking about climate change research. In 1979, there were two studies done on the impact of carbon dioxide on the environment in response to others that had been done. One done by natural scientists and one done by economists. The report done by the natural scientists matched up with what had been said before -- that the amount it was increasing was a problem, but when the economists put out their report it was quite different. Their conclusion showed that any action at the time would be costly and that any serious changes would be so far off that they can be discounted. This is a substantial problem with including all criticism in science. …show more content…

To remedy this we can not say that “all” criticisms should be taken into account, but that “all criticisms that are credible and not intended for political gain” are the ones that should be listened too. It’s also important that one does not ignore just for the sake that it does not agree with either your conclusion or what you hope to achieve from your research. If all of these rules are followed, criticism will go a long way in making science as objective as

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