Sat Essay
Question: Are people better at making observations, discoveries, and decisions if they remain neutral and impartial? Support your position with reasoning and examples taken from your reading, studies, experience, or observations.
Objectivity by researchers has not, and probably never will be attained. People will always have biases; some will be created by cultural values and others by personal views. The search for objectivity lies in the realm of philosophy along with the search for reality. Even though complete objectivity can never be reached, people are better at making observations, discoveries, and decisions if they attempt to set aside their biases. There are numerous examples in everyday personal life, books and science.
People who only make observations from one point of view are blind to many interesting observations/discoveries that they could have made. I had a friend who is a very stodgy and conservative girl. She dislikes many people based on their attire, tastes and careers, but fails to realize that, though not similar to her, many of these people are very successful and decent people who are worthy as friends. Her biased judgments reflect the one-sidedness that deprives her of a fuller social life.
Sometimes people can be deceived into developing an overwhelmingly single-minded perspective, making it nearly impossible to remain impartial. For instance, in Ralph Ellison's novel, Invisible Man, the nameless narrator is brainwashed by the Brotherhood into adopting a purely Communist approach to life. However, after confronting many problems and dilemmas concerning the political party, he finally realizes that he had blindly accepted all the pre-packaged principles, wasting his life as a tool of the Communist party and forfeiting his intellectual independence.
Discoveries, especially in the scientific realm, can be doubly adversely affected by a lack of objectivity. Since scientific discoveries are based on observation,
Objectivity by researchers has not, and probably never will be attained. People will always have biases; some will be created by cultural values and others by personal views. The search for objectivity lies in the realm of philosophy along with the search for reality. Even though complete objectivity can never be reached, people are better at making observations, discoveries, and decisions if they attempt to set aside their biases. There are numerous examples in everyday personal life, books and science.
People who only make observations from one point of view are blind to many interesting observations/discoveries that they could have made. I had a friend who is a very stodgy and conservative girl. She dislikes many people based on their attire, tastes and careers, but fails to realize that, though not similar to her, many of these people are very successful and decent people who are worthy as friends. Her biased judgments reflect the one-sidedness that deprives her of a fuller social life.
Sometimes people can be deceived into developing an overwhelmingly single-minded perspective, making it nearly impossible to remain impartial. For instance, in Ralph Ellison's novel, Invisible Man, the nameless narrator is brainwashed by the Brotherhood into adopting a purely Communist approach to life. However, after confronting many problems and dilemmas concerning the political party, he finally realizes that he had blindly accepted all the pre-packaged principles, wasting his life as a tool of the Communist party and forfeiting his intellectual independence.
Discoveries, especially in the scientific realm, can be doubly adversely affected by a lack of objectivity. Since scientific discoveries are based on observation,