Editing Marxists Behaving Badly (section)

=== Objectivity ===
The only way to arrive at the truth in any investigation is to proceed with objectivity. A scientist tries to be objective –meaning, to question her own biases, and not permit those biases –which everyone possesses –to predetermine the results of her analysis.

Therefore we have to recognize our own preconceived ideas and prejudices, and then take definite steps to doubt them, to question them, lest they fatally bias our investigation.

We have to work out a method of looking with particular skepticism upon evidence that tends  to  support  our  own  prejudices  and  preconceived  ideas.  We  also  need  to  give  especially generous  consideration  to  any  evidence  that  tends  to  contradict  our  own  prejudices  and preconceived ideas.

If we fail to do this, we will do the opposite. Inevitably, we will give an especially generous reading  to  evidence  that  tends  to  support  our  preconceived  ideas,  and  be  quick  to  reject  any evidence that tends to disprove our preconceived ideas.

We will fall prey to confirmation bias.<ref>See the article at <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias>. - [[Grover Furr|GF]]</ref> Then we will have no chance at all of discovering the truth, for even if we stumble upon it we will not recognize it. 

Anticommunists and Trotskyists cannot afford to be objective because the evidence does not support their falsehoods and fabrications. Very few of the academic scholars who write about Stalin-era Soviet history make any attempt to practice objectivity.