Instrumental objectivity

One of the interesting questions is to what extent these changes in instrumentation are philosophically significant. For example, Daniel Rothbart, who examines the epistemology of chemical instrumentation in the chapter "Substance and Function in Chemical Research," argues that a careful scrutiny of experimental phenomena in relation to the various kinds of instruments used to observe them experimentally serves to undermine the familiar and typically uncontested dichotomy between "real" and "artificial" specimens. In the chapter entitled "Analytical Instrumentation and Instrumental Objectivity," Davis Baird takes us through a particular historical trajectory in analytical chemistry between 1930 and 1960 to demonstrate a crucial transformation... 

For Muller, objective methods were instrumental methods. Muller sought methods whereby one would insert an unknown in an instrument, push a button, and get the answer. We might best characterize instrumental objectivity" as "push-button objectivity."... 

A variety of elements make up this ideal. I argue that the two most central elements involve minimizing human judgment and cost efficiency. Instrumental objective methods should be simple to perform—requiring minimal human judgment—and the... 

The result is a profound change in the how the world "feels," in the "texture of the world." (On "texture" and "feel," see Hacking, 1983 1987, p. 51.) It is a qualitatively different experience to give birth with an array of electronic monitors. It is a qualitatively different experience to teach when student evaluations—"customer satisfaction survey instruments"—are used to evaluate one s teaching. It is a qualitatively different experience to make steel "by the numbers," numbers produced by analytical instrumentation. Push-button instrumental objectivity has changed our world. 

Megill references Theodore Porter s work on objectivity in the service of statistics and public administration (Gigerenzer et. al., 1989, chap. 7 Porter, 1992). As becomes evident in the following discussion, there is a close relationship between statistics and instrumental objectivity. 

This, then, is the context in which analytical chemistry developed or promoted the concept of instrumental objectivity. Analytical chemistry long has had important ties with the chemical industry. The development of instrumentation promoted equally important ties to forensic analysis, medical diagnosis, environmental analysis, among other fields. In producing new—better—methods of analysis its goals have had to serve the values of these many masters. 

Perhaps the nicest, albeit indirect, statement of instrumental objectivity can be found in Walter Murphy s March 1948 Analytical Chemistry editor s column, "Modern Objectivity in Analysis." In the coliunn, Murphy presents and critiques H. V. Churchill s dinner address to the Third Annual Analytical Symposium of the Division of Analytical Chemistry. 

Muller s "Instrumentation in Analysis" essays are of interest for many reasons we can find in them an explicit articulated definition of modern objective instrumental methods they clearly show how these developments were tied to industrial needs and, because of this connection, we can see how technological values of blackboxing, standardization, and cost efficiency get tied to this emerging notion of instrumental objectivity. Muller serves as an excellent witness to changes in this notion of objectivity and the tensions that produced them. 

Muller s instrumental objectivity resided in the instrument, not in the principles of applied physical chemistry. The resistance Muller encountered here is tied to the classical notion that, fundamentally, science is concerned with human understanding and... 

Left to industry, only immediately commercially viable instruments would be developed. The result would be the predominance of economic values instrumental objectivity would have to be primarily profit making. 

What then do we learn from Muller s editorials We learn how, within analytical chemistry, objectivity came to be understood instrumentally and that the best instrumental objective methods were automatic methods. There was a strong economic need in industry for more efficient methods of analysis. Despite Muller s pleas, a science of instrumentation with its own academic departments did not develop in the university setting. In the commercial setting, economic values could not be separated from other desirable values in developing new analytical instruments. In short, instrumental objectivity came to incorporate values from the marketplace. 

Job evaluation can take on the appearance of a bona fide measurement instrument (objective, numerical, generalizable, documented, and reliable). If it is viewed as such, then job evaluation can be judged according to precise technical standards. Just as with employment tests, the reliability and validity of job evaluation plans should be ascertained. In addition, the system should be evaluated for its utility, legality, and acceptability. 

Another type of efficacy-oriented study of particular note in the context of this chapter involves the combination of pharmacodynamic models with instrumented, objective, and sensitive performance capacity... 

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