0910G[try best]第二组第四次作业 issue157 by seraphy1986

seraphy1986UID: 2629743

TOPIC: ISSUE157 - "There is no such thing as purely objective observation. All observation is subjective; it is always guided by the observer's expectations or desires."
WORDS: 518
TIME: 00:45:00
DATE: 2009-6-21 10:00:12

The author asserts that all abservation is subjective. According to this assertion, we could not trust anything which was observer by others and everthing we are observing is different from others. Of course, this assertion is too extrem.

It is a fact that different people have different opinions when they observe the same ovject. That's because everybody has different experience, position and educational background. When observing, our expectations and desires for the observation result are quite different, too. The observers may too focus on the result he expects to attain, and ignore other facts he does not expect. Then the bias comes out. Because of all these factors, the results of observing the same subject are different.

However, so-called subjective observation means the interpretation of the observation is subjective. The ovject itself exists and the ovservation itself is a fact. For example, before Coperninus'theory that the sun is the heart of the solar system was accepted by the public, the old view was that the earth was the heart of the universe which was suggested by a great philosopher Aristotle. Coperninus' theory that the earth rotates daily on its axis and revolve yealy around the sun is his interpretation of the observing result. The authority at that time tended to believe that man was the crowning achievement by God and we lived in the centre of the universe. The old system could help the authority maintain their power. So different desire of observation cause opposite result. However, no matter the observer admits it or not, the earth rotates around the sun day after day. The fact can't be changed by the observors' interpretation.

According to the proposition of the author, there is no truth in the world. However, as a matter of fact, many scientific discoveries has gained through observation in the human history. When Newton, a great scientist was sitting under an apple tree, a falling apple roused his attention. He raised his question that why the direction of the falling apple is to the earth, not to the sky or any direction else.
So Newton got the conclusion that
the earth has gravity which makes us stay in the earth. His observation proved to be true by different observers and was accepted by the public. When the interpretation of observation are concord with the observation, the observation could be considered true.

All in all, it is arbitary to assert that all observation is subjective, though observer’s expectations or desires has impact on observation. We should try our best to observe and interpret the object as objective as possible so that the observation result can be true. In the process of observing, we could use the method of one-blind or double-blind to reduce the subjective bias. That’s to say, the observer don’t know the researching differences between the investing objects. And it’s a good method to avoid the errors from sujective observation that more observers observe the same object and get the same conclusion by discussion. Everybody has his or her subjective opinions. Observation can be objective when we try our best to advert the subjective errors.