so true...and they think because they have religion that they are morally superior...and, if you do not have religion, you cannot be moral...

Most people do not know how to think in higher level abstractions and lack the mental ambition to pursue objectivity. They become comfortable thinking with their feelings.

which basically comes down to "doing the work" to be as sound in your "life" as in your profession...
...and most individuals are too lazy to do that work...
...and then they resent you for the work and thinking that you do...
...how many times have I heard..."that's just your opinion"...while they act morally superior...argh!!!!!

Modern science requires advanced mathematics to formulate and relate high level abstractions, but it is useless without the proper concepts. Many problems necessarily require mathematical analysis, but not always if the concepts are properly understood and the essentials addressed.

There is an old story about J.P. Den Hartog (1901-1989), an expert in mechanical and electrical vibrations and a professor at MIT for many years who wrote several classic textbooks still consulted. He also did consulting work for companies. One of them had a vibration problem it could not solve for a large a structure. It hired consultants who did elaborate mathematical analyses but still could not solve the problem. Then Den Hartog went out and looked at the structure and immediately understood the cause and solution of the problem. It wasn't magic, he did it because he combined a thorough theoretical understanding with years of practical experience and could draw on his automatized knowledge and thinking together with direct observation to get to the essence.

That cannot always be done, and difficult problems require a combination of understanding and complex analytical ability (even for Den Hartog). But if you know what you are doing, even in a very complex problem you can often bypass needless irrelevant complexities. Regardless of the type of problem you are solving, your confidence is not based on faith.

Her discussion of the "anti-conceptual mentality" -- in "The Missing Link" and the follow-up article "Selfishness Without a Self", both written long after NBI -- as treating higher level abstractions as if they were low level concepts based directly on perceptions, is very helpful but requires careful reading. It illustrates how the anti-conceptual mentality manifests itself in different realms, including clinging to tradition and heritage. In particular she refers to her explanation of "abstractions from abstractions" in Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology: a person may learn his profession very well through experience and some degree of better compartmentalized thinking, but science and philosophical topics are abstract subjects requiring more abstract concepts objectively formulated and applied. Understanding the nature and importance of objective abstractions makes it clear how some people can succeed in some business and even make some good observations about some political events staring them in the face, but completely flounder in an abstract discussion.

An arbitrary assertion is one made without evidence. The topic here is the relation between belief and objectivity. You left out that objectively believing that something is true requires the evidence demonstrating it -- a reason, in logic, to believe it. That matters. Believing the arbitrary is not objective.

'Cognitively worthless' means no cognitive value because there is no evidence connecting it to facts. Rejecting the arbitrary on principle as cognitively worthless is not subjective "bias"; it is a principle of logical thinking. The principle of not accepting a statement for lack of evidence is a matter of logic, not "opinion". Fantasy is not a tool of cognition. Lack of evidence has nothing to do with someone not "liking" an assertion. Cognitive value is not "entirely a matter of whether or not the individual 'likes' it enough to act on". That is subjectivism, not objectivity.

A legitimate hypothesis is one for which there is evidence of the possibility that it is true. It is does not mean that a statement must be proved true before it can be regarded as a hypothesis, which make no sense and is a straw man. Stating that something is possible is an assertion requiring evidence for the possibility, and that it is a conceptually meaningful, non-contradictory statement employing valid concepts to begin with. Arbitrary hypotheses are arbitrary assertions, to be rejected as such on principle. Rejecting the arbitrary is not choosing to not "look at a subject" -- unless the "subject" itself is the arbitrary assertion.

A subjectivist is not the "only one" with an epistemological "right" to evaluate the "possibility" of his assertions. Anyone can assess any statement by anyone. You again confuse logic with a political "right" to believe whatever you want to, immune from criticism and logical rejection. You cannot, in logic, demand that others take arbitrary assertions seriously. You can make whatever personal decisions about what to believe that you feel like, but in epistemology that is subjectivism, not objectivity.

The topic of this thread on the relation between objectivity to believing that something is true pertains to the individual mind, not "making decisions for another individual". Please stay on the topic. Whether one accepts logic in his own thinking is each person's decision to make for himself, but for those who don't there is nothing left to discuss. Reason and logic -- not arbitrariness, faith and feeling -- as the standard of discussion on an Ayn Rand forum or anywhere else is not "coercion".

"That an assertion is arbitrary..."

Arbitrary to whom? Ultimately, the only one who has the right to determine whether or not an assertion has the possibility of being proved is the one about to conduct the test - he/she is expending the time, energy, and resources! A third party may offer their opinion, such as in the case of a parent telling a child not to do something dangerous (like putting something in an electrical socket) but this neither invalidates nor should be allowed to override the original actor's opinion. How many inventors, scientists, and others have been told "that can't be done" only to prove to that their detractors were gravely mistaken?

"A legitimate hypothesis requires evidence of possibility."

There is no such thing as a "legitimate" hypothesis. It is in the testing of the hypothesis that legitimacy and confirmation - or rejection and illegitimacy - are determined. If one has already prejudged his or her hypothesis, one is simply introducing bias. Should the hypothesis include a likely outcome - an expected outcome? Absolutely. But this is very different than a "legitimate" outcome. The outcome is what it is. It is legitimate in its own right - not because we want it to be.

"Rejecting meaningless, contradictory, and arbitrary assertions as cognitively worthless is not a matter of "not liking" someone's claims to an alleged "outcome""

"Worthless" is a statement of personal valuation. It is an opinion - not a logical assertion. Therefore it is entirely a matter of whether or not the individual "likes" it enough to act on it. If one chooses to look at a subject and determine not to act on it, that is a personal decision. To attempt to make that decision for another individual is coercion and should not be tolerated.

Believing something is true based on evidence is not an accidental coupling.

That an assertion is arbitrary does not mean "no test has been designed". A legitimate hypothesis requires evidence of possibility. Rejecting meaningless, contradictory, and arbitrary assertions as cognitively worthless is not a matter of "not liking" someone's claims to an alleged "outcome" just as bizarre as the original subjective assertion. This is not a matter of legitimate scientific exploration where evidence of possibility for meaningful ideas are taken seriously -- though lack of proof precludes belief -- even when attempted verification is inconclusive.

They can.
When such a coupling occurs, however, it is usually bu accident.

Lack of evidence simply means that no valid test has been designed to either confirm or disprove the hypothesis. It is not grounds for dismissing the hypothesis entirely. It is grounds for developing a better test!

One thing that one must be very careful of in this case is designing a test case to fit one's biases and then claiming that because there was no outcome from the flawed test case that the outcome disproves the premise. Another is to ignore the existing results of others who have applied a successful test because one does not like the outcome.

Knowledge is mental grasp of reality. Understanding is understanding of reality (but not omniscience, like a mystic pretends). Reality is the object of knowledge, not the "context". In that sense all knowledge "relies" on reality. "Current understanding" is understanding at the current state of knowledge, which is an active process, not something provided by reality as a "context".

Context is what we know which we take into account as relevant in some thought process: the entire field of awareness currently possible or what we selectively focus on as objectively relevant out of what is available to us. When we later understand more we have an expanded context of knowledge, not a changed reality. We know more facts, with more relations between them, as knowledge expands.

"Current understanding" evolving in time is not a progression of overturned fallacies or sequence of changing floating abstractions. Except in cases of error, knowledge is not replaced, it expands -- expanding the context of knowledge in terms of which we think and apply what we know. Discoveries of "anomalies" do not overturn understanding, to be "welcomed" for that; they are new discoveries not previously known or understood that add to knowledge.

There is no "evil" without a consciousness to achieve it. Evil does not stand alone; it requires a conscious action and a knowing actor, even if the action is to blank out reality. Human beings can be evil, horses and dogs and cats, cannot. There is no "devil"; there are people, like Hitler or Stalin, as examples, who do evil things. "Evil" is a negative term meaning, "that which is not good" and the necessary next question is, "Good? By what standard?" This, of course, leads into the whole subject of ethics, the branch of knowledge that deals with moral principles. I'll stop here...

"Current understanding" relies upon reality for context. As we better understand reality, over time, "current understanding" will change because the context has changed

Believing something is true based on the evidence is not a human foible. It is essential to knowledge. Knowledge is a mental grasp of reality; failure to believe it is about reality is the opposite of knowledge. "Current understanding" is not a floating abstraction apart from understanding of reality.

Not just "holding to a belief in the face of evidence to the contrary" but lack of evidence. Rejecting the arbitrary as cognitively worthless is not bigotry and bias.

What about belief in objectivity?

" Likewise, the evolution vs creation argument is belief-oriented."
Science often is belief-oriented due to human foibles, but not by design. Science is supposed to welcome anomalies that overturn our current understanding.

While driving home last night I listened to a podcast about the Telford Grooming Scandal. In listening to it I was reminded that there is real evil in the world, possibly even a devil. I think it might go beyond the writings of Ayn Rand. But, I welcome any comments about it. My point is that this may push one toward a bit of "faith".

You and I pretty much concur, but I need to clarify one thing, when my brother in law said he'd have to see the math, it wasn't that he was asking for confirmation. He admitted he genuinely wasn't interested in physical principles, and was amazed that I had reached a correct conclusion without going through the math. My cohorts in engineering projects were often dumbfounded that I could resolve problems much faster than they could, and often without dependence on computers, calculators, or mathematics. I had to conclude that the difference was that they relied on a rigid adherence to what they had been taught, but was puzzled as to why I reasoned differently. I finally had a clinical psychologist explain that people often fail to use the best human mental skill, which is pattern-matching. He went on to say that my reasoning was an example of a primitive skill used by our hunter-gatherer ancestors, who relied on noticing slight differences in their environment, and that I was collecting information and detecting what was wrong with the complete picture to arrive at a solution. It's a much more rapid way to solve a problem, but a difficult method to teach. I guess you could say that I had faith in my skill, but relied on an objective set of data to execute.

As I understand the question, it depends upon what you mean by "belief". If by belief you mean that one tentatively accepts statements pending evidence one way or another, then yes, I think that they can be compatible. If, however, you mean that one must have faith that something is so, in the religious sense, then I think that they are incompatible.

thanks...had this discussion with her at an NBI event in NYC...very perplexing...

For more on this see Ayn Rand's essay "The Missing Link" on what she called the "anti-conceptual mentality" in her anthology Philosophy: Who Needs It.

If you have the required evidence for believing something is true it is not faith. Objectivity is compatible with a belief only if you can validate it in reason. Rationalization and feelings are not compatible, whether or not you are later willing to revise a belief. Truth is not evolutionary as a sequence of exploded fallacies. Unless an error has been made truth is not "revised", only expanded with increasing knowledge.

Of course science is "belief-oriented". It is knowledge. If you don't believe it is true because it has been validated then what would be the point of it?

Mathematics is a science of method, establishing relations among measurements, not a faith about reality. Mathematics does not by itself represent reality, to be taken on faith and without the relevant valid concepts of entities, actions and attributes in reality.

When your brother said in answer to a specific question that he "would have to see the math", it could have been a perfectly rational response if all he meant was that he would have to see some inference conceptually proved as relations between known facts.

The science of evolutionary biology does not ignore facts. It seeks to explain facts not yet fully understood. All sciences are open-ended, expanding knowledge through discover of new facts and explanation. Creationists do not seek proof of their belief; they seek to further rationalize what they already improperly believe on faith.

You can believe something is true based on the evidence or through faith and feelings and/or rationalization. That doesn't make belief incompatible with objectivity; a belief may or may not be objective depending on why you believe it. The intensity of feeling in a belief is not justification for believing it. Why is that a conundrum?