Context: I'm an undergrad history student in university and one of my lecturers was talking about a non academic article we had to read, I said that it seemed like the article was working backwards from a conclusion, but my lecturer said there was nothing wrong with that. I disagreed and said that surely forming a conclusion and then attempting to find evidence to suit it is backward logic, and that it would be better to review evidence and then form a conclusion from what you read, or to attempt to disprove your own ideas about a subject through reviewing evidence, as is done in science.
Am I wrong? Does trying to be objective as possible not matter in academic history? And is it common for historians to try to prove their conclusions rather than form conclusions from evidence?
Its not really wrong, but depending on execution isnt exatly right.
Do some research -> Form opinion -> form thesis -> do in depth research -> re-write or retain thesis
If the in depth research proves to support the opinion and thesis then the thesis was sound and shjould be kept. If it doesnt then the thesis should be re-written, given an explination why its wrong or thrown out all together.
If you as the reader can show that there is undue bias in teh paper that cherrypicks evidence to support the thesis and that there is evidence against the thesis then you should theoretically write something to refute that thesis showing your evidence. The next guy comes along, compares both articles rejecting the one with false assertions and keeping the one based on sound principals, confirming it belongs in the overall body of evidence for that topic.
Objectivity is a tricky concept in all fields but especially in history, where all works are interpretations and all interpretations are to serve some kind of end. Over the years historians have become less and less obsessed with worrying about whether "objectivity" is what should be reached for, and whether a form of "mediated subjectivity" (with a large dollop of intellectual honesty mixed in) is more honest and productive.
This is separate from your overall question about the proper relationship between theory and evidence, which is a very thorny epistemological one (not just in history — it's thorny in the sciences as well). Historians, philosophers, and sociologists of science (among others) can marshal considerable evidence that whatever idealized model you have about how this relationship might work, in practice it never works that way; real-life people zig and zag between theory and interpretation all the time, and it is entirely debatable whether one can make any kind of observation without already having a theoretical presumption to begin with. In practice, moving between inductive ("searching for evidence") and deductive ("moving from interpretation") modes of thought occur in erratic modes, backwards and forwards, and not necessarily in any particular order.
None of this should be understood as implying that historians don't care about evidence (they do), or about intellectual honesty (they definitely do). But the idea that there is some kind of simple methodology at work here (or anywhere!) is a misconception.
On the history of debates objectivity in the historical profession, see esp. Peter Novick, That Noble Dream: The 'Objectivity Question' and the American Historical Profession; on the question of theory-bound observations, Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions is a good place to start.