12.4 Words Mx

words Being objective The idea of scientists as impartial observers is hard to shake, but is complete detachment justified? Mary Midgley hat does it mean to be objective? ife, consciousness John B. Watson, the founding and purpose are Wfather of behaviourism, had no L doubts about this. For him, the word meant natural facts in the world simply ‘avoiding emotion’. Thus, in giving advice about parental behaviour, he wrote: like any others, and in “There is a sensible way of treating chil- some contexts they are dren. Treat them as though they were young adults… Let your behaviour always be objec- vitally important facts. tive and kindly firm. Never hug and kiss them, never let them sit on your lap. If you must, kiss them once on the forehead when they say good night. Shake hands with them gist, never had to consider whether this law in the morning…” (Psychological Care of actually extended to cover everything in Infant and Child 9–10; W. W. Norton, New nature, including active organisms such as York, 1928). small children. And again — as he too was As he knew that parents were prone to part of nature — was his own purpose in make this kind of mistake, he had grave writing his books real or not? He doesn’t say. doubts about whether they should be allowed He took all purpose to be illusory and the dif- to bring up their children at all, or indeed to ference between living and lifeless matter, have anything to do with them. “There are,” sentience and unconsciousness, to be some- he noted, “undoubtedly more scientific ways how a trivial one, beneath the notice of sci- of bringing up children, which probably ence. For this strange metaphysical view he mean finer and happier children.” claimed the authority of Galileo, as Galileo Here, as often happens, the notion of had excluded purpose from physics. But objectivity seems to be closely linked to that physics, as we know, is not the whole of sci- of science. But just what does ‘scientific’ ence. It never has to deal with living subjects. Lessons in objectivity: should parents, or even SPL mean here? It does not mean that these new This strange notion of objectivity does scientists, always be objective? methods had been scientifically proved to not follow from the ordinary use of the word, have this better effect, for they had not. Wat- which is simply fair, unbiased, impartial. In jects somehow damaging to the kind of son seems to mean by it something more like that sense, the objective way to tackle a ques- objectivity that matters? Certainly it is hard- ‘ways that avoid emotion, as a scientist may tion — for instance, whether it is good for er to be impartial in studying children than it be expected to do when he (repeat he) is small children to be hugged — is to try to find is in studying rocks. But we have to deal with investigating something inanimate’. By out the answer by studying the children this difficulty by watching for the obvious objectivity, similarly, he means treating what themselves rather than by simply expressing sources of bias, not by suppressing our nat- one has to deal with as a lifeless object, not as one’s own emotional response to this phe- ural responses altogether. Someone who sees a subject. nomenon, which is what Watson clearly did. children merely as unconscious physical But can this precaution always be Life, consciousness and purpose are nat- objects is not going to be able to observe observed when that item is in fact alive, and ural facts in the world like any others, and in them very intelligently. may even be human? This question has wor- some contexts they are vitally important It is interesting here to note the impres- ried many theorists. Some have dealt with it facts. That is why we have to take subjectivity sive advances in primatology that have been in heroic style, by ruling that life itself is actu- seriously. But the idea that our scientific duty made by Jane Goodall and the crowd of dis- ally an illusion. Thus Peter Atkins: “Inani- is to treat everything we study as an inani- tinguished women scientists who have fol- mate things are innately simple. That is one mate object has been strangely persistent, lowed her — Dian Fossey, Birute Galdikas, more step along the path to the view that long surviving the behaviourist ideology out Sarah Hrdy, Sue Savage-Rumbaugh and the animate things, being innately inanimate, of which it grew. When Jane Goodall first rest. Although they are thoroughly rigorous are innately simple too.” (The Creation 113; submitted an article about chimpanzees to in their methods, what has drawn these peo- W. H. Freeman, New York, 1987.) Similarly, Nature, the editor crossed out the words ‘he’ ple to this particular study is their deep sym- Jacques Monod laid down his ‘postulate of and ‘she’ where they were applied to the apes pathy and respect for the animals that they objectivity’ — the assumption that no such and replaced them by ‘it’. Similarly, her use of investigate. That sympathy and that respect thing as purpose is to be found anywhere in names rather than numbers for the animals lie at the core of their science, as well as nature — and considered it “consubstantial caused alarm, although psychologists deal- fuelling their strong efforts to save these with science”, a universal law because, as he ing with human beings had established species from extinction. A watsonian fear of rather oddly put it, “Nature is objective” before this that using names was a much emotion that ignores such motives overlooks (Chance and Necessity 30, 54; Collins, more efficient method for observing people something central to the scientific spirit. I Glasgow, 1972). than using numbers. Mary Midgley was formerly senior lecturer in Now Monod, being a molecular biolo- Is this greater complexity in living sub- philosophy at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne. NATURE | VOL 410 | 12 APRIL 2001 | www.nature.com © 2001 Macmillan Magazines Ltd 753.

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