by Sarah G…
The science of seeing what you want to see
[Via Butterflies and Wheels]
The weapons we need to defend scientific objectivity are themselves social practices, Kenan Malik points out.
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A very interesting essay which demonstrates that even though individual researchers might make mistake, particularly in interpretation of data – they are human, after all – the overall process (the give and take of peer, review publication and replication, etc.) helps us gain better understandings of the world around us.
Our system of science works well BECAUSE we are human, not just in spite of it. Confirmation bias, the bane of all researchers that are human, can confound a lot of work.
But the more people who examine the work, who bring their own views to the work – particularly an adversarial view – the closer we get to an accurate view of the Natural World.
A Man With A Ph.D. 
Maybe there aren’t a lot of amateurs like me, but I find this whole study fascinating. Particularly since, I think, there was once a study showing that cranium size has nothing to do with intelligence. Has anyone measured Gould’s or Morton’s craniums?