So interesting! Science is indeed science, but I’m wondering whether everything that is scientific is necessarily science? I can take a scientific approach to understanding what I’ve written in my journal (how many words, which words, dates written, content analyses, etc.), but does this mean I’m doing science? I currently am leaning toward no, but am also loudly proclaiming that knowledge need neither be scientific nor based in the scientific method to be valid knowledge.

There’s a concept from feminist theory called “strong objectivity” (developed by someone named Sandra Harding) that calls for researchers to name their subjective standpoint as part of the research process, and that doing so makes their work more “strongly objective” because readers know not just what was researched, but who researched it, with the presumption being that “who” matters — especially in what have been called the social sciences. Feminist scholars thus tend to incorporate personal narrative into their work to show that subjective standpoints can and do influence how research is conducted, and that it is epistemically dangerous to ignore this influence because bias is ineliminable given that humans are based in subjectivity. I share this because I wonder what strong objectivity would look like in the “hard” sciences, and how scientists account for themselves in their research. I believe in objectivity and objective truth, but also think that everything humans do is subjective — including the “doing” of science! I’m a radical poststructural social theorist, though, so I know this influences how I see things… ;)