what can scientists do to ensure that they preform experiments objectively?

Question

please answer i was wondering

Answer 1

Others must be able to repeat the experiment and come to a similar conclusion.

Answer 2

Excellent question.

There is a paradigm called the scientific method. If followed correctly, the results obtained will be as objective as a subjective human being can obtain.

Roughly, the scientific method entails:

1. Posit a hypothesis (I guess it's raining out)
2. Specify what it'll take to say your hypothesis is true (If my hand is wet, it's true)
3. Collect data (Stick your hand out the window)
4. Analyze your data (Bring you hand back inside and look for water)
5. Make your conclusions based on the analysis (My hand is wet, my hypothesis is true)

Of course, my example is way over simplified. But it serves to give you the idea of the steps of the scientific method.

For the most part, objectivity is best served by using quantitative (numbers) methods (like the design and analysis of experiments from statistics). In any case, quantitative methods or not, the idea is to minimize the opportunity for skeptics to discredit your experiments, results, and conclusions because of your subjective nature, which all humans have.

Answer 3

One of the best ways to keep it objective is to do double blind experiments. Let's say you're sampling a city where you think something toxic is causing cancer increases, and you're taking samples of blood cells to see if there are abnormal chromosomes. You'd also get samples from a control city where the cancer rate is normal. The sample collection and testing would keep the experimenters from knowing where the sample was from. Thus there's no way that 'wanting' a particular result could influence what the analysis would find. Each sample would be given a number, and later on, the code would be broken and the results collected into their respective groups from each city. If there's a difference then, you could be confident it was a real difference. But of course, you couldn't be sure if the difference was really causing the cancer, although you could argue that it was contibuting based on effects know from chromosome damage in other studies. It's this issue that some people are wondering about with the athletes' drug samples. Do we know for sure they were handled correctly, double blind with no chance for tampering?

Answer 4

Any true scientist is objective. They seek only truth, even if the results are not what they were trying to acheive. It seems that the best way to assure objectivety is to make availible the process in how the experiment was preformed to other scientists.

Answer 5

Its called Peer Review. When someone proposes a conclusion or a new idea, the theory proposed or the experiment proposed is checked by other Scientists. That happens all the time before the result is widely accepted.
And when someone shows a short coming or proposes a better explanation, the theory is reformed or replaced.

This is the way Science works.

Answer 6

An experiment must be repeatable. Experimental procedures and data analysis must be subject to peer review (study by other learned people) who will check them for objectivity and validity. There's usually somebody who has a theory opposed to yours, at least in some detail or other, who'd jump on the chance to catch you in a mistake. Your job is not to make any mistakes for him to catch.

Answer 7

1. eliminate as many variables as possible and/or limit the number of variables;
2. keep accurate records;
3. report the results no matter how they fit the theory;
4. be able to repeat the experiment and results by someone else independent of the original research.

Answer 8

Follow a procedure as precisely as possible, make detailed records of both procedure and results, conduct several trials to ensure that the results are consistant, and present your results in a format that they can be tested and reviewed by others.

Answer 9

depending on the type
go in to it as if you were trying to DISprove the hypothesis as opposed to trying to prove something, that way youre not 'looking' for something that may not be there