User:JREverest/sandbox/Approaches to Knowledge/Seminar group 2/Evidence

Evidence and subjectivity: Data is objective. It exists, is permanent and unquestionable. Evidence on the other hand only exists if there is an opinion. The evidence presented varies from argument to argument. Meaning that evidence will always support our argument. Objective data is selected and manipulated in order to get evidence that emphasizes and reinforces our point. If we do not look for counter-arguments, data that might contradict our point, we are bound to stay within the same mindset. One could say that there is a 'good' and 'bad' way of using data.

Evidence and conspiracy theories : Conspiracy theorists single out snippets of evidence from the total database and frame it in such a way that it points to an evident conclusion. It comes down to how we present the evidence, and what we make out of it. We take the data out of context and draw conclusions. The very concept of a theory is subjective. We use theories to shape the knowledge we produce. And this knowledge is always produced from a particular standpoint. (climate scepticism, flat earth society...)

Evidence and pseudo-science: link to eugenics, scientific racism...

Evidence and sociology: How can we analyze and theorize statements about our society based on studies and numbers, knowing that the reasons why individuals act the way they do are completely different ?

The Imperfection of Memory leading to Evidence Bias - An interdisciplinary issue

Most people may believe that events that bring about strong emotions including fear, anger, stress or sadness are way more memorable than other, less emotionally significant, events. Scientists all across the globe have studied this phenomenon and argued that various hormones including glucocorticoids, catecholamines, growth hormone and prolactin are released during states of strong emotions. These hormones can "prime" nerve cells to remember emotional events, by "increasing their chemical sensivity". Many of us can also agree that, from personal experience, we only remember events that truly shocked us, saddened us or brought about other types of "strong emotions". Unfortunately, numerous psychologists and neuroscientists have shown, using simple experiments that we will later discuss, that memory is a process that may be flawed by minor distortions. The use of character & eye-witnesses in a courtroom has often been regarded as strong/credible evidence in criminal, corporate and many more subdivisions of law cases across the globe. Unfortunately, we often expect memory to be more reliable than it actually is, leading to false accusations and conclusions to be drawn.

In 1885, psychologist Herman Ebbinghaus first plottet and published the famously-called Forgetting Curve, a curve describing the brain's disability to recall information over time. On average, this curve shows that humans are unable to recall around 50% of encoded information after one hour. Coming back to our courtroom, this wouldn't be such an issue as it would simply mean that a witness would have forgotten some of the information seen or heard, for example. However, it has also been argued that some of the recalled information in the Forgetting curve experiment was recalled, but altered, or slightly "distorted". Most of us have a tendency to believe that what we see can be compared to what we could film with our mobile phones, and we tend to overestimate the accuracy of our memory, which in reality simply represents our perception of the reality, not the objective truth. We now see that there is an interdisciplinary issue in using witnesses in a courtroom as it is generally accepted that the evidence presented by one's memory is hugely credible, when it in reality isn't.

Firstly published in 1914, the Cross-Race Effect is also interesting to look at when it comes to Evidence Bias. Psychological research has shown that "an eyewitness is better at recognizing members of his/her own race/ethnicity than members of other races/ethnicities".

The legal system was and still is slow in some countries to adapt to such discoveries in the research related to memory. More interest has been shown regarding memory research since the progress of criminal evidence methods, including DNA, facial recognition and many more, which have unsurprisingly exonerated thousands of falsely-accused criminals all around the globe due to false "memory" accusations.

What is evidence?

Evidence is similar to truth in any ways, as it proves equally as difficult to discern between subjectivity and objectivity through evidence in a discipline. It is hard to say whether truth precedes evidence, or evidence precedes truth: evidence is often required in order for something to be perceived as true, however can evidence correctly be provided before any concrete facts are established? Additionally, the way in which evidence is perceived within and among different disciplines varies, which in turn can provide a source of debate. The ways in which evidence is used depends largely on the discipline; in social sciences evidence is often gathered in interpretive and even constructivist ways, where the focus is on the qualitative data, especially the human experience and consciousness, whereas in maths and sciences evidence (like truth) is something positivist, because it can be proved either physically or through the laws of mathematics.

Discussions on Evidence

Evidence in History

In order to seek evidence, scientists typically carry out a large number of experiments and test under rigorously fixed conditions, in order to reduce the error potential as much as possible. In other, less positivist/empirical disciplines, this method of experimentation is not possible. In the case of history, conclusions are typically drawn from tidbits of evidence from lots of different human sources from the time, meaning that the potential for human error is massive. This margin of error is remedied by using a wide range of sources, in order to remove bias. However unreliable, this is often the closest we are able to get to a perfect account of reality from that time period in history.

In Africa's Tarnished Name, a collection of essays by Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe, we are given a brief rendition of the story of Nigeria before, through and after colonisation, from the perspective of a Nigerian who lived through that period. As I mentioned earlier, historians aim to curate evidence from sources who lived through a period in time to piece together its history, however this concept was not apparent in colonial history and literature. Chinua Achebe's work was particularly significant because he brought an African perspective to the story of colonisation, a story which was otherwise only told from the perspective of the white colonisers themselves, resulting in an immense level of bias.

Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad, contributed greatly to the tale of colonisation transcending from a piece of literature to history, as this work was one of the earliest Western accounts of Africa. The book was treated as evidence at a time when the West knew next to nothing about life in Africa, and Conrad's writings were taken extremely seriously. What the author failed to make clear was that his book was a work of fiction and he had chosen to exaggerate many ideas for dramatic effect, rendering the book inadmissible as evidence as it was replete with bias. Or perhaps he did make this clear, but the Western powers (British, Belgian, French etc. royalty) decided, anyway, to use it to justify the colonisation of Africa, the effects of which are still felt worldwide today. Either way, in this case, bias in evidence stands out as an interdisciplinary issue as it creates a link between literature and history, then history and human geography.

Evidence in Anthropology

What we learned in anthropology this week is quite relevant to the topic of evidence. I want to share with you the situations when our evidence should be opening to further study before establishing the argument:

When our first-hand data (evidence) is influenced by our presumptions and perspectives: There was one anthropologist, Bronisław Malinowski ,who have done the participant observation study of locals in Trobraind island, which is entering their society and make notes of what he sees everyday. Although he had profound results around the complex institution of Kula ring, he didn’t see the importance of women in both political and economical institutions until about 50 years later, a women anthropologist Annette Weiner entered the Trobriand island.

2. When the observable evidence is not correct, and there is no one can give the realistic data ((also connect to the next concept Power): Anthropologist Michel-Rolph Trouillot argues the written history is a result of power, that history is only written by the winner. So he leads people to recognize the difference between what have happened and what is said to be happened and sees history as a biproduct of the writer and the true event.

3. Another dimension of understanding, when the superficial evidence is not enough: Lévi Strauss argues that anthropologist should study not only the conscious part of human activity, but also the unconscious part. He says history often represent the conscious expression of life only, while to study unconscious aspect we need to analyze the dual organization (we put dual concepts in cultures) in human brain.

Evidence as an Issue to Interdisciplinary Study

Evidence is defined as 'the available body of facts or information indicating whether a belief or proposition is true or valid'[1]. In simpler terms, evidence is a form of data which serves as proof for the truth. However, just as truth can be defined in many different and contrasting ways, evidence can be also. In scientific disciplines, evidence can be taken in the form of peer reviews, journal papers or review papers. However, when evaluating these papers we must be careful to not take these forms of evidence as absolute. It is necessary to evaluate the socio-cultural context of the paper. This is essential, as the cultural context of any research project affects both the individual behaviour of the researcher (and potential participants)[2] which may present the data or evidence in a certain way.

Example: evidence in humanities and sciences Both subjects use evidence to back up their arguments and theories. In Biology the evidence can be drawn from data collected in experiments and in History evidence are photographs or letters.

However, in those subjects, the evidence collected is different. In sciences, in experiments, the evidence must be absolute and states empirical truths; but in History, the evidence can be biased, depending on who took the photograph or wrote the letter.

We see how evidence is linked to truth, and how both can contrast and vary.

Evidence of Hygiene in Art in the 17th Century

Art has been debated to be based purely on experience, which at first may seem like a contrasted concept to evidence. However, it has always been a reflection of society’s reality, lifestyle and way of thinking, so why isn’t it considered as factual proof?

Let’s dive into specifics. The general thought when it comes to hygiene in the 17th century in Europe is, without a doubt, not a positive one. Plagues were still recurring (hence the Great Plague of London from 1665-66, London’s worst bubonic plague to date), where the best solution was sending groups of health-checked people into ships and keeping them in quarantine. Versailles, in that same century, showed signs of lack of hygienic care as it was in constant construction work (both dirt and bad smells started gathering, contributing to the expanse of diseases). There is historical evidence for both examples given: official documents of the affected people in the first case, and archaeological evidence for the second.

How can we find artistic evidence for this? At first sight, is seems like art refutes this hygienic lifestyle: bathing is one of the most recurring themes in history, representing a state of luxury and even power. However, looking further into this issue, we can also see a recurring lack of soaps or perfumes in the paintings (particularly in Europe, Japanese paintings during this era show otherwise). Western Europe had the notion that bathing in warm water would open up pores and made them more prone to diseases, and it was also extremely difficult for the majority of the population to gain access to it.

In my opinion, this clearly means that art is both deceiving and evident towards every social aspect, from this issue specifically to the more general. Of course bathing was shown in paintings and art, idealistic and beautiful. But that does not mean it was done regularly or that society had a positive understanding of bathing, at least not to the perception we have of it nowadays. History is written by the victors, and in this case, the wealthy who could afford bathing.

Qualitative and quantitative research

Evidence, in the form of data, falls into the categories of quantitative or qualitative across all disciplines. Quantitative data measures values, and therefore is made up of numbers. Qualitative data is descriptive, it can be observed but not measured. In the field of psychology, experts were dissatisfied with traditional scientific quantitative methods. The study of human experience is complex and cannot be simplified into numerical data. The phenomenological approach emerged in order for the subject/participant’s experience to be explored, and their perception of reality to be understood. Through this method researchers are able to explore how and why the phenomenon/behaviour occurs and hence why they act in a certain manner. Qualitative data can provide answers to causes, effects and relationships. Some methods for acquiring qualitative data include: open-ended questionnaires, participant observation and ethnography. After the data is collected analytical tools are applied such as content analysis, thematic analysis, discourse analysis or the grounded theory. Context is an extremely important element of qualitative data that is always taken into account. The research usually takes place in the subject’s natural surroundings, contrasting to the controlled environments used by quantitive research methods. This form of research is sometimes considered to be less valid and reliable for a variety of reasons. For example, it is rarely large-scale due to cost and time constraints. Furthermore, it’s a non-replicable form of research due to varying conditions and context. On the other hand, quantitative data is gathered through controlled observation and close-ended questionnaires. Data can be ranked, categorised and displayed in graphs and tables; and give a clear result as to whether accept or reject a theory. The quantitative approach is generally viewed as scientifically objective as data can be statistically analysed. Quantitative methods can be replicated by others because numerical data is less open to interpretation and ambiguity. Limitations of close-ended questionnaires are that there are a limited number of ways a participant can respond. The data collected may be a mere reflection of the researcher’s bias. Considering the strengths and limitations of both forms of data, both are needed for better insight into complex issues.

Evidence as an issue in Psychology and associated Interdisciplinary research.

The so called ‘father of psychology’ Wilhelm Wundt used a method called introspection in order to understand the internal workings of the mind. This method involves recording the subject’s reaction to a given stimulus. Around at a similar time, Psychologist Sigmund Freud also used un-empirical methods to achieve un-falsifiable evidence, a famous example being the Oedipus and Alexa complexes. According to Karl Popper, there are certain characteristics which make a method and the following evidence scientific, these include: being objective, controlling variables during the methodology, and the evidence collected being falsifiable, repeatable and empirical. . We can therefore conclude that two hugely important characters involved in the birth of psychology are deemed unscientific by this index.

It is therefore not difficult to see why psychology is sometimes still deemed a pseudo-science. Because phenomenological research such as that carried out by Wundt and Freud was deemed unscientific, you can also see why a movement towards scientific method in the mid-20th century could have occurred, alongside the birth of biological psychology. This began with researchers such as Skinner, who used highly controlled situations to measure the effect of an independent variable on a dependent variable. He managed to understand some aspects of the nature of addiction by using the famous ‘Skinner Box’, in which a rat was kept and rewarded with a food pellet every time it pressed a lever. Now, like Skinner's research, psychological research is often conducted following Poppers definition of scientific, for example using CAT scans and MRIs as evidence.

It could be argued that the type of evidence collected has huge influence over the definition of psychology as a science or a pseudo-science. This in turn may have an influence on the respect psychology has as a discipline, and the respect that phenomenological evidence receives within the discipline, and therefore as evidence in interdisciplinary research.

An example of interdisciplinary research where evidence is a problem which prevents scholars from different disciplines from communicating would be the treatment of depression. People are often prescribed drugs for depression as a result of scans which show there is a chemical in balance within the brain. However scientists such as Johann Hari believe that more sociological evidence can be used to show that society should be held accountable for depression above a lack of dopamine. He therefore also suggests alternative treatments based on a piece of normative evidence based on a worker in Cambodia who lost a limb. In the study, the worker quickly developed depression after the incident because he could no longer work. Hari argues that ‘They (his community) bought him a cow. Within a couple of weeks, his crying stopped, within a month, his depression was gone… (he could become a dairy farmer)… If you’d been raised to think about depression the way I was, and most of the people here were, that sounds like a bad joke, right?... But what those Cambodian doctors knew intuitively, based on this individual, unscientific anecdote, is what the leading medical body in the world, the World Health Organization, has been trying to tell us for years, based on the best scientific evidence.” It can therefore be argued that because this evidence is hard to record scientifically, biological psychologists will be unable to communicate with sociologists on this interdisciplinary problem, and therefore be unable to treat depression successfully.

Evidence in the moon landing hoax

Nowadays one out of 6 people in the UK believe the man never walked on the moon. However both theories present different types of evidences which creates a tension and therefore an opposition on the moon landing veracity statement.

The best example is the absence of stars. Conspiracy theorist proof of the staged moon landing relies on empirical, science based evidence. They say that on the pictures taken we cannot see stars in the sky in the pictures taken. The Nasa then explained that the stars where too faint to see for a camera which focused on the astronauts.

Here we can see a clash between empirical reasoning evidence linked with astronomy and reasoning evidence linked with physics (the functioning of a camera with its lens). Even though both of these evidences have the same structure they are based on different disciplines which contradict one another.
We could then ask which evidence would be stronger as from surveys we saw that more people believed in the moon landing of 1969 than its staging.