Hi,
Science, in theory, aims to describe the world objectively. It is pretty clear that the word subjective in things related to science may have negative connotations. The postmodernist idea that things cannot be known, that everything is subjective, could be
very harmful as I believe it leads to a radical skepticism. We must be pragmatic here and realise that, in fact, there are things that can be known to some extent, and those things are not subjective. Therefore, employing the word subjective when describing
those things is wrong. It is not subjective that the probability of showing heads after flipping a fair -and thin- coin is 1/2. The outcomes of a coin or a dice follow certain objective rules, which could, in principle, be known.
However we must realise that we work in a field where judgements have to be done and subjectivity plays a role. I believe there is much attention attempting to end with the objective-subjective, aleatory-epistemic debate, and we are trying to apply 'science-based'
methodologies to settle it. This field we work in lies in the intersection of science and philosophy, and therefore a 'scientific' interpretation will not capture the whole complexity of the debate (science shouldn't be about opinions), whilst a 'fully philosopical'
interpretation will be too vague or impractical (at the end, we want to make choices). I don't think this debate is solvable in a conclusive way; for example, connotations are cultural dependent and the word 'subjective' has different meanings for different
people (I can even imagine a language without the word "subjective" or anything that refers to it).
My bet is that we should evolve towards a more transparent description of the assumptions we make in our scientific works, acknowledging how and where the uncertainties came from. It is ok if someone wants to use a different word to 'subjective', as long as
they explain what they mean by that word, or what that word implies. And of course misinterpretations will happen; aren't conferences useful to correct those or to provide further explanation of our work?
Enrique
--
Enrique Miralles-Dolz
PhD Student
Institute for Risk and Uncertainty
University of Liverpool
As a psychophysicist I see it differently and more simply
Objective is potentially available to all. Not to be confused with
Quantative
So audio/visual files presenting the view of an individual are OBJECTIVE. They may include objective material such as Jo is my sibling, objectively verifiable, or subjective data such as �I feel very good today�. But the records themselves are
objective.
Analyses of such objective data may be objective, e.g. the number of times �NOT� was used, or subjective, this protocol suggests a �pathological� personality.
Subjective is only available to an individual experiencer. Not to be confused with
qualitative
If an individual says that some physical sound is seems to be 15 times as loud as some other� standard� physical sound then the data is
quantitative but subjective.
As regards probability and risk.
Risk and probability are more complex
This is because they can refer to either samples or populations, possibly/usually hypothetical.
E.g. a fair coin has .5 probability of landing heads. Given sample of known size one can estimate the probability that coin is fair. Given 4heads /4 throws, sample = 1 not unlikely; given 400 heads out of 400 throws sample p =1, a fair coin,
you cannot be serious and I am not meeting in that lottery.
In the real world, people make their own estimates of probability on whatever sample data is available. In many cases only sample data is available. In other cases, population data IS available, e.g N entering letter and N prizes. Here subjective
refers to the data a person chooses to use. This is so whether or not objective data is available.
Subjective should not be pejorative, unless it means making poor or no use of available data
In fact all estimates of risk are subjective. What is to be avoided is choosing not to use available data.
best
Diana
Dear colleagues and friends
I agree that objective and subjective are not the most ideal of terms, and that they have acquired unwanted connotations through years of intellectual (and other) debate. For this reason, amongst others, I prefer to use a different (and not entirely
equivalent) differentiation, which in my view is less clouded by ideological issues: epistemic (relying on informed knowledge/beliefs) and physical (related to physical phenomena).
Every good wish, Gert
Prof. Gert de Cooman
Universiteit Gent (ELIS�Foundations Lab) � Durham University (Department of Mathematical Sciences)
Op 17 feb. 2021, om 18:26 heeft Kreinovich, Vladik <
vladik@utep.edu> het volgende geschreven:
Dear Friends,
We often talk and write about objective and subjective probabilities, about objective and subjective measures of uncertainty. However, at a recent conference on uncertainty, Yakov Ben-Haim made an important observation -- based on his experience of working
on applications with colleagues from many different areas.
His experience is that in many application areas, the word �subjective� has a negative connotation: it means unjustified estimates based on gut feeling only, prone to bias and wild variations.
Such gut-feeling-based estimations sometimes happen, but mostly, when we talk about �subjective�, we mean judgmental estimates, estimates which are not just coming out of gut feeling, but which can be usually provided with some justification. For example, if
we estimate to what extent someone is young (one of Zadeh�s original examples) we can usually explain the degree we assign to �youngness� of an individual by referring to features which are present and which are typical young age � and features of this individual
which are more typical for mature-age folks.
For example, subjective probability often means simply probability that is not coming from the analysis of frequency, but from expert estimates.
Yakov�s recommendations is to use words like �judgmental� (or �expert-based�) instead of �subjective� in such situations, especially when working on applications � and applications are the main goal of uncertainty studies in the first place.
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