1562) In the old days, social scientists who studied deviance adopted a medical perspective. They diagnosed symptoms, declared the subject mentally ill, and prescribed cures. Recently, some have tried a different strategy. They asked the deviants how they perceived the world, and an odd thing happened. Given the assumptions the deviants made about the nature of their own realities, their "sick" behavior appeared quite reasonable, often even logical.

John H Taylor, Raymond A. Eve, and Francis B. Harrold
"Why Creationists Don't Go to Psychic Fairs:
Differential Sources of Pseudoscientific Beliefs" in
Skeptical Inquirer (Nov/Dec, 1995)

1563) Scientists have beliefs and expectations about their work. Scientists are humans: They have professional egos, research projects to defend, and commitments to pet theories. While scientists often experimentally refute their own hypotheses and readily toss their theoretical failures into the trash bin, they sometimes strongly believe a hypothesis and truly hope it passes the test. Scientists usually have expectations about the probable success or failure of a hypothesis even in the absence of string commitments or opposition. Most students know scientists have biases, and some students, perhaps influenced by the epistemological relativism of the New Age movement, conclude that science is nor more objective that personal experience or mythology. They (and I suspect, a good part of the general public) fail to understand that the presence of beliefs and expectations among scientists does not mean that scientific research itself is biased. Scientists are trained to work with experimental procedures that, by and large, prevent their beliefs and expectations from influencing experimental results. Bias cannot be eliminated from science, but it can be isolated.

When we speak of objectivity in science, we do not mean that scientists are completely free from bias; rather, we mean that good research utilizes experimental and data analysis procedures and standards that prevent bias from influencing the outcome of tests. Ideally, any personal beliefs the researchers have about the eventual outcome of the experiment should play no role in the outcome. Researchers with totally opposite preconceptions should arrive at the same results upon following the same procedures.

Michael Mussachia
"Objectivity and Repeatability In Science" in
Skeptical Inquirer (Nov/Dec, 1995)

1564) I don't know what's the matter with people: they don't learn by understanding, they learn by some other way — by rote or something. Their knowledge is so fragile!

Richard Feynman
"remark concerning many scientists'
failure to generalize concepts
across situations"
Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! (1985) [WQ]
quoted (in part) by Scott O. Lilienfeld in
"Will the Real Pseudoscientists Please Stand Up?" in
Skeptical Inquirer (Nov/Dec, 1995)
[review of Pseudoscience in Biological
Psychiatry: Blaming the Body
by Colin A. Ross and Alvin Pam]

1565) The fact of the matter is, we scientists are simply not all that interesting. If I may generalize wildly, we are usually dull people with interesting ideas - as distinguished from artists (interesting people will dull ideas) and dancers and athletes (dull people with dull ideas and magnificent physical skills).

James S. Trefil
"Science Faction" [sic] in
Scientific American (11/1995)
[review of The Bourbaki Gambit
by Carl Djerassi and
Good Benito by Alan Lightman]