Scientific information is claimed by scientists to be the only “reliable” knowledge because it is created in a culture of objectivity. Objectivity in research gives researchers trustworthiness, according to Dr. Annabel Fossey of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR)*. “This applies to both the tasks of setting up the research and gathering the data and in the tasks of interpreting and publishing the results.”
“It is of growing concern how often research integrity is currently being challenged, and how common “unprofessional” behaviour seems to be in research today… Researchers knowingly or intentionally ignore some of the most fundamental rules of research. Experimental designs and analyses are biased, results are reported inaccurately or incompletely…”
The popular belief is that science is beyond opinion – unsullied by the scientist’s political or personal views. This is not correct. “Science is not an idealized interrogation of nature by dedicated servants of truth, but a human process governed by the ordinary human passions of ambition, pride and greed,” conclude William Broad and Nicholas Wade in their report Betrayers of the Truth**, a comprehensive survey of scientific fraud. "The claim of science to represent a reliable body of knowledge rests four-square on the assumption of objectivity, on the assertion that scientists are not influenced by their prejudices or are at least protected from them by the methodology of their discipline." But methodology is the area most open to mistake.
* Dr. Annabel Fossey, “Research ethics and agricultural innovations”, Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), South Africa 28/07/2008 http://knowledge.cta.int/en/Dossiers/S-T-Issues-in-Perspective/Science-and-ethics/Articles/Research-ethics-and-agricultural-innovations
**Oxford University Press, 1985
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