During a science fair, a group of students came up with the following question: “Is color an inherent property in objects or is it a product of the mind?” Why would this question be extremely difficult to answer scientifically?

Question

anonymous · Answer

a. Color is not an observable phenomenon.
b. How people experience color is subjective.
c. It does not attempt to explain the natural world.
d. The experimental group would be too large.

I think its b or d, not sure though..

anonymous · Answer

I can only think of b, in conjunction with colorblindness. Is there more to the question? I am guessing, since there are different ways of forming color (i.e. diffraction, interference etc), sometimes color is different depending on the light or, for example, for some animals, depending on the color of the substrate... This is a very tricky question!

anonymous · Answer

I know, thats all to the question though

anonymous · Answer

I think is B as well.  Color is just an spectrum that exist for us but other organism like dogs that see black in white might not know other colors besides black and white.  How do we not know there are more colors than the ones we already know?

anonymous · Answer

defiantly color is a observable so a is out and c is of course out as well

anonymous · Answer

but there are a wide range of colors also

anonymous · Answer

what do u think?

anonymous · Answer

I'd stick with B, but I might be wrong...

anonymous · Answer

ok thank you. can you help me with the question that says Jason and Mat.. ?

blues · Answer

I think it's b.

That being said, the wavelengths which different materials reflect light (hence the color they appear) is an intrinsic property of the molecular structures and the way the materials are made at the atomic level. So in that sense, I think it's an intrinsic property of the material.