S1 Ep12 - Fiona Fidler on Collective Objectivity

The HPS Podcast - Conversations from History, Philosophy and Social Studies of Science

"It wouldn’t make sense to leave the entire burden of upholding objectivity in science on the shoulders of fallible individuals, right?" Prof. Fiona Fidler

To finish off our inaugural season with a bang – today’s episode features the visionary researcher who initiated the idea for the podcast – Professor Fiona Fidler.
Fiona is head of our History and Philosophy of Science Program at the University of Melbourne and co-lead of the MetaMelb research initiative.
In this episode Fiona first discusses her early move from psychology to HPS when she was struck by the ‘dodgy’ statistical methods she found prevalent in many sciences. She has since dedicated her career to studying scientific practice to help improve confidence in scientific claims.
Fiona introduces us to the concept of ‘Collective Objectivity’. Following from an earlier podcast on 'Values in Science' by Rachel Brown, Fiona discusses how contemporary understandings of objectivity have become more sophisticated.
Rather than viewing objectivity in science as solely the role of individuals, today we understand there are strong social dimensions to ensuring scientific outcomes are not unduly biased. As Fiona discusses, this not only requires diversity in 'who does science' to ensure multiple perspectives are incorporated, but we also need multiple collective review mechanisms to ensure we are developing truly robust, reliable, objective outcomes.

Current research shows our current community-level systems are no longer adequate for today’s complex scientific world. Fiona forcefully argues that what is required is heavy investment in establishing stronger collective mechanisms for reinforcing the goals of scientific objectivity.
Some links related to this episode can be found below:

• Profile: Prof Fiona Fidler (unimelb.edu.au)
• Blog Post: MetaMelb – A New Research Initiative (hpsunimelb.org) |
• Website: MetaMelb research group
• Helen Longino (1990) Science as Social Knowledge
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy - Objectivity as a Feature of Scientific Communities
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy - Objectivity as a Social Process
• What is P Hacking: Methods & Best Practices - Statistics By Jim

A transcript of this episode can be found here: https://www.hpsunimelb.org/post/episode-12-transcript

Thanks for listening to The HPS Podcast with your current hosts, Samara Greenwood and Carmelina Contarino. You can find more about us on our blog, website, bluesky, twitter, instagram and facebook feeds. This podcast would not be possible without the support of School of Historical and Philosophical Studies at the University of Melbourne.
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