Objectivity in Experimental Inquiry: Breaking Data-Technique Circles

I respond to H. M. Collins's claim (1985, 1990, 1993) that experimental inquiry cannot be objective because the only criterium experimentalists have for determining whether a technique is "working" is the production of "correct" (i.e., the expected) data. Collins claims that...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Philosophy of science 1995-09, Vol.62 (3), p.438-458
Main Author: Culp, Sylvia
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Amino acids
Data Quality
DNA
Enzymes
Epistemology. Philosophy of science. Theory of knowledge
Experiments
Gels
Methodology (Data Analysis)
Nucleotide sequences
Nucleotides
Objectivity
Philosophy
Presuppositions
Raw data
Sequencing
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Summary:I respond to H. M. Collins's claim (1985, 1990, 1993) that experimental inquiry cannot be objective because the only criterium experimentalists have for determining whether a technique is "working" is the production of "correct" (i.e., the expected) data. Collins claims that the "experimenters' regress," the name he gives to this data-technique circle, cannot be broken using the resources of experiment alone. I argue that the data-technique circle, can be broken even though any interpretation of the raw data produced by techniques is theory-dependent. However, it is possible to break this circle by eliminating dependence on even those theoretical presuppositions that are shared by an entire scientific community through the use of multiple independently theory-dependent techniques to produce robust bodies of data. Moreover, I argue, that it is the production of robust bodies of data that convinces experimentalists of the objectivity of their data interpretations.
ISSN:0031-8248
1539-767X
DOI:10.1086/289877