This is merely a critique of false objectivity, not actual objectivity. The actual process of objectivity necessarily involves communal dialectics with people who disagree and challenge in order to weed out emotional processes. This takes time effort and discomfort.

The problem with these sorts of articles and how people interpret them is that they appear to be some sort of “gotcha” on the merits of objectivity when in reality they aren’t saying anything new or unaccounted for in the spheres that actually orient themselves around objective pursuit.

Guarding against this reality (of one individual or a monolithic group of people claiming to be objective) is the basis of science, peer review, American democracy via representation, and dialectical processes. It’s an indictment on dictatorships or loss of free speech to challenge ideas, not an indictment against objectivity. It is a critique on single individuals or like minded grouped claiming to be purely rational and thus immune from the necessity to participate in dialectics.

That’s not to say objectivity applies to everything: metaphysical values such as sacrificial compassion vs a survival of the fittest mentality are purely subjective. But we can still apply objective processes to them: ie we can tell if a person is holding and applying a stated value consistently or hypocritically; we can tell what the results of a value produce.

Science also is aware that we can’t know anything for sure which is why it relies on “verisimilitude”, that is, some things being more certain to be true than others, and notions of utilitarianism (ie what is our goal and will doing X produce this).

Ie a sole scientist is not able to be objective, but a group of 100 disagreeing scientists can work to hone in on and weed out subjective biases and cognitive errors in a collective effort to arrive at a 93% certainty that X is X, with a maximum certainty of perhaps 99%. Never 100%.

Doctors are trained in this way too. It’s why a good doctor won’t ever tell you that you have a 100% chance of survival in a surgical procedure or medicine. The best one could say is “this procedure has a 99% observed success rate without any serious complications to resolve issue X and we believe the benefits outweigh the risks”

And that was arrived at through long term dialectical processes, whose methodology can be applied to a myriad of other issues in life. This is what objectivism means - it is not a solo effort, it is not a short term effort, and it is not a certainty. Rather it is working together as humans through dialectics using specific methods intended to weed out biases and emotions.

It’s not perfect, it’s not easy, it’s not quick. But it does work towards a stated goal, ie, practically reducing suffering.

In summary - the entire premise of objectivity proper is that subjective biases exist and we are trying to control for them through specific communal methodologies and diverse dialectics.

Misunderstanding this leads to overly simplified ideas such as “one person can’t be objective, therefore all there is is subjectivity”.

It also overlooks the fact that while no group of humans can be perfectly objective (ie none will hit 100%), they can collectively be closer to or further from away objectivity.

Finally, I am not downplaying the value of emotional subjectivity it is to our being human. We need both. I am merely clarifying what I find to be a consistent abuse of the idea of objectivity. Your dogmatic uncle bob who loves to belligerently argue is not the definition of an objective person.