Quote:quote:SUBJECTIVE: Influenced by or based on personal belief or feelings, rather than based on facts.
OBJECTIVE: Not influenced by personal beliefs or feelings; based on real facts. It's an admirably objective and impartial report. Science is usually concerned only with objective facts that can be proved or disproved.
The difference between these two important ideas is the difference between fact and opinion. Facts are objective and probably true; however, if no clear facts exist about a topic, then a series of balanced opinions needs to be produced to allow the reader to make up his or her mind; opinions are subjective ideas held by individuals and so are always biased. If unbalanced opinions are presented as if they are facts, they act as propaganda or persuasion, e.g. a BAJR headline might state: "Unit of 1 is the prime cause of trouble in this area". This is presented as an objective fact but is clearly a subjective opinion.

An objective piece of information, therefore, needs either to be the whole truth and at least be unbiased or balanced, whereas a subjective point of view is biased because it is either not the complete picture or it is merely a viewpoint or expression of feelings.

I cadged this bit from some old course notes about fingerprinting and expert witnesses, but it is just as workable with archaeology...

In the legal arena, expert witness testimony is presented as opinion testimony, not because the conclusion is someone's personal opinion, but because it is a conclusion that the lay person is incapable of forming. The conclusion reached by the examiner is an “interpretation or conclusion by trained individuals after conducting an examination employing scientific principles, — that are reproducible.” Regardless of the scientific or technical discipline, the purpose of the expert witness in the legal system is to interpret information and form a conclusion that a jury of lay persons would be incapable of doing. If a person without any training in the area of identification would provide an opinion as to an identification, that opinion would be subjective and based on personal feelings, rather than skill, and would sound something like “it looks the same to me.” An examiner's conclusion is not based upon a personal opinion, but rather on an evaluation of the detail present using knowledge and skills acquired through training, education, and experience.
If defining the term 'expert witness' - Training, education, and experience are the tangible assets that form the foundation of an examiner's expertise and are not created in the examiner's mind. An examiner's knowledge and ability can be and is tested, is documented and can be verified, and is evaluated by the courts and juries every time the examiner takes the witness stand. One of the cornerstone principles of scientific evidence and its examination is that it is not influenced by the mood, emotions, or the personal prejudices of the examiner. Subjectiveness is based solely on personal feelings.

So... after all these years of being an experienced, trained, educated and peer-reviewed archaeologist...

I say Acheulian, you say Mousterrian,
I say pot-lid, natural fractured flint, you say rough-out, incomplete scraper,
I say Romano-Saxon, you say "no such thing!"
I say potato, you say potatoe.

... which one of us is right? We both are, of course

Quote:quote:Science is usually concerned only with objective facts that can be proved or disproved ... If unbalanced opinions are presented as if they are facts, they act as propaganda or persuasion, e.g. a BAJR headline might state: "Unit of 1 is the prime cause of trouble in this area". This is presented as an objective fact but is clearly a subjective opinion