Is it ever possible to be totally politically neutral?

For example if i looked at research in to say divorce and child poverty, very often you can detect a certin left or right bias in the research...and not only from organisations that have either a right or left bias either...

So do you thing there is such a thing as completely neutral unbiased research in the area of social policy

silverharp

I'd say no on the basis that you are generally not dealing with a closed system where your conclusions have a mathamatical certainty. Any solution will come down to your view on the role of government versus attitudes to property rights for example.
It doesnt preclude useful reaseach being done and statistics gathered, its the spin at the end that will show the "colours" of the individual or organisations carrying out the work?

Einhard

No, we're all informed by our biases, whether subconsciously or not. To be completely neutral would require one to have no opinion on anything, and such a person doesn't exist, and definitey shouldn't be involved in research and/or journalism.

Zombrex

mariaalice wrote: »

For example if i looked at research in to say divorce and child poverty, very often you can detect a certin left or right bias in the research...and not only from organisations that have either a right or left bias either...

So do you thing there is such a thing as completely neutral unbiased research in the area of social policy

Depends on what you mean by unbiased.

If I say I'm studying deprivation in Dublin and I define deprivation as this and this, then the results will be based on this assumption.

There could be a bias reason why I picked these criteria to define deprivation, but as long as I'm up front about this and always explain the criteria that should be ok.

On the other hand if I define deprivation and then hide that definition in the small print and put forward my results to people who may have a different understanding of deprivation then I'm possibly misleading them.

It is like the common utterance that getting a high IQ test means you are good at IQ tests. There is nothing wrong with that. The assertion that IQ tests is equivalent to intelligence is where things get murky.

The Corinthian

mariaalice wrote: »

For example if i looked at research in to say divorce and child poverty, very often you can detect a certin left or right bias in the research...and not only from organisations that have either a right or left bias either...

So do you thing there is such a thing as completely neutral unbiased research in the area of social policy

I think the short answer is no. I suspect that our biases and prejudices will inevitably creep in, the more complex an issue is, but I do think that if we make an attempt to be objective and also expose our arguments to peer review we will hopefully come up with as objective a position as we possibly can.

Another issue with the social sciences and objectivity is that they are very dependent on axioms that are often ideologically driven. We can pretend we are objective, but if our reasoning is based upon premises and assumptions that we have accepted and are already biased, then our conclusions will also be biased.

One such axiom is with regards to the nature of homosexuality, which has changed over the years - from mental illness, through to a paraphilia and now a mainstream orientation. Depending upon what 'scientific' view you would accept or have been taught as your basis, your conclusions in assessing a topic such as gay marriage, would change drastically, even if you did everything in your power to remain objective.

All this should not be confused with the bias that one will generally come across with NGO's, that are by definition biased, as their reason d'etre is typically based on some ideological position or other.