Philosophy of science 134E
Instructor: Christian Lacroix
Nov. 11, 2004
Feminism and science
Evelyn Fox Keller (1936-)
	Trained in physics.
	Pioneer in bringing the feminist perspectives to the study of science.
	Professor of history and philosophy of science at MIT.

Do feminist criticisms of science imply a strong conflict with science?
Keller argues that the feminist perspective can be used to enhance the objectivity of science.

Degrees of feminist criticism
All feminist criticisms of science entail the claim that there is an androcentric (male) bias in science.
But there are various degrees of strength to this claim and it is a mistake to consider it as a unit.

1- Unfair employment practices in science
	Almost all scientists are men.
This criticism does not conflict with either the received view of science or current liberal, egalitarian politics.

2- The predominance of men in the sciences has led to a bias in the choice and definition of scientific problems.
	Most often and most easily made about the health science.
	E.g., contraception has not been given proper attention considering its importance 	for human life, and the attention it got has been focused mainly on techniques to 	be used by women.
This criticism does not conflict with the received view of science, for it does not include the choice of problem (context of discovery).  Admittedly, problem choice has always been influences by social forces.

3- There are biases in the actual design and interpretation of experiments.
	There is a lot of evidence for this in the more socially oriented sciences 	(psychology, primatology, etc.).
	E.g., almost all animal-learning research on rats has been performed with male 	rats.  The practical reason for this – that female rats have a four-days cycle 	complicating experiments – does not remove the implicit assumption that the male 	represents the species.
These criticisms imply a substantive effect on scientific theory (i.e., the content of science is affected), but these are almost exclusively directed against the ‘softer’ sciences.
The natural response is that these fields are simply not scientific enough, or are cases of bad science that should be fixed.

4- Even the content and method of the ‘hard’ sciences are subject to an androcentric bias.
	Truly radical criticism, attacking the received view of science.
These criticisms are made possible by:
	1- Kuhnian historical and philosophical perspective on science.
	2- An attack on a deeper level of social structure, including language and thought 	themselves.

Danger of this more radical approach: to see science as a pure social product.
Objectivity loses all intrinsic meaning, truth depends on political considerations, and so science loses its emancipatory function.
Create the temptation for feminists to reject science, and to favour instead a return to a purely ‘female’ subjectivity.

Problems with relativism specific to feminism
1- Transforms the political spectrum into a circle
	By rejecting objectivity as a male ideal, women exclude themselves from science; 	yet, this exclusion was the original problem.
2- It removes the benefice of feminist criticism for our understanding of science.

Keller’s position
The radical feminist criticism does apply to science, but not to everything in the scientific enterprise.
Feminists must:
1- Distinguish what is androcentric from what is universal in science,
2- Legitimise the elements of the scientific culture that are denied because they are defined as female.

A new objectivity
Objectivity must be redefined so to avoid the dichotomy between a male objectivity and a female subjectivity.
The human effort to understand the world in rational terms is a good one, but one that must be refined by adding critical self-reflection.

Keller’s argument
Keller examines the two main ideas here:
(1) objectivity is associated with masculinity;
(2) the goals of science are associated with the ideas of power and domination.

A psychoanalysis perspective
	The first point is deal with only briefly by reference to previous works, while the 	second is the real topic of this text.

1- Objectivity and masculinity
As children, we learn to associate femininity with the ideas of merging, and masculinity with the idea of separatedness, or autonomy.
Since our cognitive ideals - like the idea of objectivity - are subject to the same psychological influences as our emotional and gender ideals, we come to associate the idea of objectivity with masculinity.

2- Domination and Communion
Science has two driving forces:
1- Domination of nature
	Related to aggression
	Typical of the male psyche
2- Communion (or union) with nature
	Satisfies a more purely erotic impulse.
	Associated with the female psyche

Theme of domination of nature
Very prevalent in Western science
E.g., comments from Francis Bacon, who said that science is "leading to you Nature with all her children to bind her to your service and make her your slave," by means that do not "merely exert a gentle guidance over nature's course; they have the power to conquer and subdue her, to shake her to her foundations."

Theme of communion with nature
Also present in science
E.g., comments from a contemporary unnamed female biologist who talks about the importance of "letting the material speak to you," that discovery is facilitated by becoming "part of the system," rather than remaining outside, and that one must have a "feeling for the organism."

Keller admits that:
	Bacon was not really a scientist in the modern sense of the term,
	Bacon and the female scientist cited are not from the same century,
	There are male scientists who say things like those mentioned by the female 	scientist.
The themes of dominance and of communion in science are not necessarily tied to a specific time or gender.  Rather, they represent two currents of thought among scientists.

The self-sustaining prevalence of the domination theme
Now, because there are more men than women in science, the domination theme usually prevails.
Because the domination theme prevails, people whose personality is inclined toward this theme are more likely to become scientists.

The problem with the prevalence of the domination theme
Once they are scientists, these people are more likely to favour methods and theories that fit the domination theme.
Consequently, some important discovery can be missed because of the dominance of one theme over the other.

Keller’s solution
We should have a different selective process to encourage people who like the communion theme to become scientists, and thus change the prevailing theme of science.
Science will be more objective once the two themes are more equally represented.