Objectivity in the Feminist Philosophy of Science (Continuum Studies In Philosophy)

OBJECTIVITY IN THE FEMINIST PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE

Continuum Studies in Philosophy

Series Editor: James Fieser, University of Tennessee at Martin, USA Continuum Studies in Philosophy is a major monograph series from Continuum. The series features first-class scholarly research monographs across the whole field of philosophy. Each work makes a major contribution to the field of philosophical research. Aesthetic in Kant, James Kirwan Analytic Philosophy: The History of an Illusion, Aaron Preston Aquinas and the Ship of Theseus, Christopher Brown The Challenge ofRelativism, Patrick Phillips Demands of Taste in Kanfs Aesthetics, Brent Kalar Descartes and the Metaphysics ofHuman Nature, Justin Skirry Descartes' Theory ofIdeas, David Clemenson Dialectic ofRomanticism, Peter Murphy and David Roberts Hegel's Philosophy ofLanguage, Jim Vernon Hegel's Philosophy ofRight, David James The History oflntentionality, Ryan Hickerson Kierkegaard'}s Analysis ofRadical Evil, David A. Roberts Leibniz Reinterpreted, Lloyd Strickland Metaphysics and the End ofPhilosophy, H.O. Mounce Nietzsche and the Greeks, Dale Wilkerson Origins of Analytic Philosophy, Delbert Reed Philosophy of Miracles, David Corner Platonism, Music and the Listener's Share, Christopher Norris Popper's Theory of Science, Carlos Garcia Role of God in Spinoza's Metaphysics, Sherry Deveaux Rousseau and the Ethics of Virtue, James Delaney Rousseau's Theory ofFreedom, Matthew Simpson Spinoza and the Stoics, Firmin DeBrabander Spinoza's Radical Cartesian Mind, Tammy Nyden-Bullock St. Augustine and the Theory ofJust War, John Mark Mattox St. Augustine ofHippo, R. W. Dyson Thomas Aquinas & and John Duns Scotus, Alex Hall Tolerance and the Ethical Life, Andrew Fiala

OBJECTIVITY IN THE FEMINIST PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE

Karen Gordrick Haelv

Continuum International Publishing Group The Tower Building, 11 York Road, London SE1 7NX 80 Maiden Lane. Suite 704, New York, NY 10038 www.continuumbooks.com © Karen Cordrick Haely 2008 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

EISBN

9780826499547

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Haely, Karen Cordrick. Objectivity in the feminist philosophy of science / Karen Cordrick Haely. p. cm. ISBN 9 7 8 - 0 - 8 2 6 4 - 9 9 5 4 - 7 1. Science-Philosophy. 2. Feminist criticism. I. Title. Q175.H216 2008 5O1-dc22

2007036223

Typeset by Aarontype Limited, Easton, Bristol

Contents

Acknowledgements

vii

Introduction

1

1 Background for the Feminist Studies of Objectivity in Science

6

2

Power and Objectivity

26

3 Breaking with Dogma

44

4

Critical Self-Reflection: Achieving Strong Objectivity

65

5

Objectivity: A Community Achievement

84

6

Building a Network of Ideas

113

Motes

131

Bibliography

143

Index

147

This Page Intentionally Left Blank

Acknowledgements

I wish to thank Louise M. Antony for sharing her philosophical insight and helpful critique that made this project possible, as well as for her patience in correcting both my stylistic and philosophical errors. I also wish to thank Don Hubin and George Pappas for their suggestions and guidance, especially in the earliest stages of this project when it was at its worst, and Robert Kraut for cultivating my interest in Quine. I am also grateful to Hank Kreuzman who has given me philosophical guidance and critique for nearly two decades. Finally, I wish to thank Ryan, Kevin, my parents, Jeff and other family and friends who have encouraged and supported my efforts to complete this project.

Introduction

This text presents analyses of some of the more prominent feminist views of scientific objectivity, which largely stem from positions of critique of the philosophy and practice of science. I will spend considerable time explicating the critiques themselves, the reasons for the critiques, and reasons why the critiques might be compelling. But ultimately, I will suggest that taken individually these views offering useful ways to think about objectivity in science, and how to maximize it, aren't nearly as useful as they are taken collectively. That is, sometimes in looking for the one view that is most useful, or most comprehensive, we neglect the network of views that can give us clues as to what we ought to think about a given philosophical problem. This network - for which I have no technical definition or grandiose programme - is simply a set of ideas or best practices that helps rather than hinders our ideas about a particular issue or problem, in this case scientific objectivity. Here I'll be tackling the issue of objectivity in science as seen from feminist perspectives. This is done not to suggest that other, nonfeminist views of objectivity aren't of philosophical interest, but rather to narrow the focus of a field that is vast. In addition, the feminist critiques of science have recently come under some fire for being 'social constructive' in nature, or for being overly cynical about what scientists are really up to, or for themselves being overtly political. * While this might be fair criticism and worthy of attention if warranted, it is philosophically not as interesting to me as piecing together a network of ideas that together comprise a philosophically robust and interesting view of objectivity in science. So, although this network as here presented stems from feminist views, it needn't be categorized as such. Indeed, most feminists never intended for their views to be enlightening only to other feminists (though that is another

2

Objectivity in the Feminist Philosophy of Science

accusation that has been launched at feminist critics of science). Rather, views arise from their feminist perspectives that are of philosophical and, I'll suggest, practical value. Much can be learned by examining the views of feminists who address the notion of objectivity to make feminist-oriented points about knowledge, and in particular, scientific knowledge. In the chapters that follow, I will examine some prominent feminist theories about objectivity and intend to piece together a network of ideas that assist us in: (a) shedding light on just how complex this concept is; (b) developing a clearer understanding of current feminist ideas about objectivity; and (c) showing why many feminists, including myself, still think that some kind of objectivity is necessary for the success of science. In general, the views examined in this text offer conceptions of objectivity that are intended to allow us to increase the extent to which our scientific theories are objective, but at the same time allow us to appreciate (and not eliminate) the role of cultural and personal interests and values as they play a role in science. In Chapter 1, I outline some philosophical views that serve as a foundation or starting place for many of the late-twentieth-century feminist critiques of science, namely from Kuhn and Quine. I believe it makes sense to place the discussions of the objectivity or subjectivity of science into a historical context, as it will become clear to the reader that the feminist critics of science were not the first to wonder about the extent to which the scientific method really provides us with a reliable way to churn out objective knowledge, though they were the first to seriously consider the effect of gender — both the gender of the actual scientists and cultural beliefs about gender - on what we call science. As well, Quine's arguments about viewing knowledge as a 'network of beliefs' laid a foundation for my own view, which is that collectively, the various suggestions feminists have given us about enriching the concept of objectivity provide a valuable part of that network of knowledge. In Chapter 2, I will focus on the work of Catherine MacKinnon, who is mainly a legal theorist, and hence may seem a peculiar choice for inclusion in this text. But MacKinnon's views about objectivity are central to much of her writing, and though legal cases are not treated as science, one can appreciate that the goal is still the same, namely, to

Introduction

3

find the truth. So, under the broader sense of science - a structured, systematic inquiry - MacKinnon's views are certainly useful. Her views about objectivity focus on the extent to which political or social power can play a role in what we call 'objective'. Her observations about the role of power in creating knowledge serve to underscore once again why feminists are interested in objectivity in the first place. Though MacKinnon does not focus on the objectivity of science, her worries about the role of power in forming 'knowledge5 serve as an appropriate warning for feminists who are working to construct conceptions of scientific objectivity. I'll also suggest that the conception of objectivity ought to be restructured and enriched, and that feminists should resist the temptation to give up on objectivity in scientific inquiry altogether, which MacKinnon sometimes talks of doing. In Chapter 3, I'll examine what has been called 'dynamic objectivity', based on Evelyn Fox Keller's views about how to enrich our concept of objectivity. In advocating a particular method of objectivity, Keller endorses a certain approach to data that is suggested as one that increases the extent to which individual scientists are objective. In looking at Keller's work, one can see how openness to a different way of conceptualizing the researcher's relationship to his or her work might prove to substantially increase the value of the research itself. However, there are some problems with this view that I'll analyse. I'll argue that our network of ideas still needs a mechanism for dealing with and addressing common threats to objectivity outright, and this is not necessarily accomplished by advocating a specific approach to scientific problems that itself is claimed to be free of these threats. In Chapter 4, I'll examine the somewhat straightforward suggestion that what we really need in scientific inquiry is more critical self-reflection on the part of scientists. Sandra Harding outlines her version of this suggestion, arguing that what we really need is a stronger, stricter adherence to the tenets of traditional objectivity, and that this can only be done if scientists (or, I suppose, their critics) actively engage in trying to find if and where their own personal views and biases may have affected their work. The idea that this 'strong objectivity' could yield scientific theories and descriptions of nature

4

Objectivity in the Feminist Philosophy ofScience

that are less distorted by social and political interests is worth examining, though ultimately I'll argue that it asks too much of scientists: it requires so much self-reflection that may not be possible when one is entrenched in one's science and in one's culture. But some improvement in critical self-reflection is certainly possible, and scientists have done a rather poor job of fixing what hasn't worked in the process of peer review, as I'll show using some examples of just how peer review has failed us. So, critical self-reflection will become part of our network of ideas to enrich our concept of objectivity, as well as how to increase the extent to which our theories themselves are objective. In Chapter 5, I'll outline the claim that the social nature of scientific practice ought to be the focus of ways to maximize its objectivity, and this view is best outlined by Helen Longino. Longino presents us with a mechanism for addressing the interests, values or assumptions that have the potential to be detrimental to scientific progress, but emphasizes the social nature of scientific knowledge in crafting her conception of objectivity. The social aspect of science, then, is both what makes it difficult to be objective - since it is our social interactions that shape our cultural biases and interests - and also ultimately gives us a way to improve our ability to see just how those biases and interests are shaping our scientific knowledge. In Chapter 6,1 will argue that by utilizing the concepts of objectivity here outlined, one essentially forms a philosophical policy about how to approach, generate and ultimately judge scientific knowledge. This policy has pragmatic use, but is not a calculative tool that can be used in a straightforward way; increasing the extent to which our theories are objective is rarely simple or straightforward when dealing with complex and intricate theories and descriptions of the social and natural world. The troubling fact is that many aspects of scientific inquiry are not even set up to generate theories that are maximally objective, and this goes a long way to protect, rather than diminish, the effect of social and political interests as they play a role in science. Changing this is not just a practical matter, it is deeply philosophical: we must seek to change the philosophy pervasive within science itself that the scientific method automatically or systematically reduces or eliminates bias in science, and insist upon adopting the more sophisticated

Introduction

5

philosophical perspectives - some of which I've outlined in this text - that recognize the role of interest and bias in science, and seek to attain some level of objectivity even in the face of these interests and bias. That is, we should be focused on making sure we are aware of just how our own bias and interest has played a role in generating scientific knowledge, and then make judgement calls about whether it is appropriate or damaging or questionable. While not exhaustive in possibilities, the network of ideas presented here can help us do just that.

Chapter 1

Background for the Feminist Studies of Objectivity in Science

There is a story with which we are all familiar about how science proceeds: one observes some phenomenona or other, formulates a hypothesis, and finally tests the hypothesis to see if it is correct. Though in practice the method is far more complicated than the rough sketch I've drawn here, it does emphasizes the objectivity of the inquiry, and hence the method enjoys the status of producing 'scientific' knowledge, rather than, say, testimonial knowledge. Objectivity is commonly taken to be the extent to which we require our scientific beliefs to be driven by: impartially and expertly gathered data; logic and the rational connection between data and theories; and the eschewing of personal desires about what we want science to say. When we assert that research programmes are objectively done, or that our scientific knowledge is objective, we are indicating that what supports the conclusions of these research programmes is not merely a reflection of social values, politics, religious convictions or simply our desires about how we would like things to be. Rather, we are asserting that 'the facts' support the conclusions drawn. Given that science is supposed to be objective - or at least more objective than what is characteristic offieldssuch as art or literary criticism - many scientists and some philosophers have held that what counts as real science is (or should be) unaffected by what goes on in our social and political lives, and this view is part of the familiar story we've all been told about science. Indeed, the very separation between what we call science and everything else (non-science) rests on the extent to which our scientific practice adheres to certain norms and rules that are supposed to be the great equalizers of all biases, prejudices, guesses, emotions, social and political beliefs and the like.

Background

7

These norms and rules - embodied in what we call the scientific method - are supposed to wash out all the non-empirical and nonscientific bits and pieces that are so characteristic of religion, art, music, politics and culture. The assumed distinction between the context of discovery - how hypotheses and theories become formulated - and the context ofjustification - where those theories are tested against evidence - has led many to claim that the relationship between science and social and political ideals is either non-existent or unimportant. Indeed, if what we call scientific knowledge is cleansed of social and political values, if it is truly objective, what could an investigation of the interaction between them possibly yield that could be helpful to scientists? The objectivity of science1 is supposed to be explained by the deliberate separation of the contexts of discovery and confirmation. In discovery, the scientists and researchers working out scientific problems don't follow any set of rules, and they are not required to set aside personal views or beliefs in this context. This is where personal interests, political or religious beliefs, gut feelings and hunches are allowed to guide and direct the researcher, in effect leading him or her to a hypothesis or theory about some phenomenona or other. But in confirming ox justifying our theories - the context of justification - the scientific process becomes, well, scientific: the process of confirming theories requires that evidence be weighed against those theories, resulting in either the confirmation of the theory or the theory's demise. In confirming theories, the social and political preferences and desires of the research community are not allowed to have an effect on the confirmation of the theory. Indeed, if such things did have an effect on the outcome of a scientific study, then the study would cease to be, on this view, truly scientific. Again, the scientific quality of research is supposed to be based in part on its objectivity, or the extent to which subjective values are carefully guarded against, and are precluded from influencing the conclusions of the research. This basic sense of objectivity is what has elevated scientific knowledge to the value it enjoys today: to some degree or other, we trust that scientific knowledge has passed certain tests that make it less likely than non-scientific knowledge to be influenced by social or political factors, and hence less likely to be wrong.

8

Objectivity in the Feminist Philosophy ofScience

To illustrate, consider the theory that some peptic ulcers are caused by bacteria. Prior to the early 1980s, the common view was that peptic ulcers were caused by the overproduction of stomach acid (often induced by stress)." However, in 1979, Robin Warren, an Australian pathologist, found odd-shaped bacteria in tissue from stomach biopsies. Dr Warren tried to grow the bacteria in a culture, but failed - as had German pathologists a century earlier. While the German work had long been forgotten, Warren continued to attempt to grow the bacteria, and did quite by accident in 1982, along with colleague Barry Marshall. Because of the Easter holiday, some of the culture samples were allowed to sit for five days instead of the standard two, and the bacterial colonies appeared. These bacteria, called H. pylori, were found to be associated with persistent stomach irritation, and several forms of stomach cancer. It was proposed that perhaps H. pylori could cause stomach ulcers as well. The confirming evidence came through many tests to see whether being infected with H. pylori increased the risk for peptic ulcers. And, indeed, this is precisely what researchers found: H. pylori cause almost all cases of ulcer disease that are not medication-related (i.e., people who regularly take aspirin for arthritis often develop aspirin-induced ulcers). Had H. pylori not been found in most cases of peptic ulcers, we would not take very seriously the idea that there is a link between ulcers and H. pylori. This simple example illustrates the kind of activity that is described by what has been called the 'received view'3 of what ought to comprise all truly scientific justification of theories and descriptions of the world. On this view, theories are tested against the evidence, and testing is repeated until the theory has been confirmed or justified.4 The scientific part of this story isn't whether Warren observed the Easter holiday, or whether he believed that bacteria could cause ulcers - on the received view, this belongs in the context of discovery. Rather, the scientific part of the story is found in the testing and re-testing of Warren's hypothesis about the link between H. pylori and peptic ulcers. The received view of science, especially its insistence on the separation of discovery from justification, places importance on mathematics, logic and observational terms.0 The received view assumes

Background

9

that scientific theories can be sharply distinguished from other nonscientific, though rational, human endeavours, such as ethics or metaphysics. The received view maintains that the context of discovery ought not to mix with the context of justification, at least not if the integrity and objectivity of science is to be preserved. Theories, on this view, are justified on the basis of their fit with the evidence and related background assumptions,6 not on the basis of such factors as the personal preferences or values of the scientist, or the social and political values of a given scientific community. The separation of discovery and justification indicates that what scientists ought to do when they accept a theory is provide empirical evidence that justifies it: the theories that we ought to accept are those that are justified by the evidence. Carl Hempel thought that the objectivity of science was safeguarded from the influence of values, interests, personal desires and biases because the hypotheses and theories of science had to 'pass critical scrutiny, which includes in particular the checking of suitable test implications by careful observation and experiment'.7 Elsewhere, Hempel makes clear that hypothesis acceptance cannot be based on non-empirical evidence: [the] grounds on which scientific hypotheses are accepted or rejected are provided by empirical evidence, which may include observational findings as well as previously established laws and theories, but surely no value judgments.8 While it is certainly true that a scientific community could accept (and, indeed, has accepted) theories based on non-empirical value judgements, this is not what proponents of the received view envisioned for science; value judgements just don't belong in science. Rather, on the received view, a theory is only properly or rightly accepted when it is well confirmed, or justified, by the objective, empirical evidence only. Of course, if taken in its simplest form, much of this line of thinking is wishful and naive and oversimplifies the nature of scientific practice and knowledge. Eventually, hardly any philosophers took seriously the simplest form of the received view, recognizing that scientific knowledge is often statistical, it changes as new discoveries are brought to light, and scientific knowledge is not, in practice, immune from social and political influences.

10

Objectivity in the Feminist Philosophy ofScience

However, even more robust versions of the received view have been criticized based on the lack of actual scientific practice that resembles this view, and in particular focus has been placed on the denial that value judgements play a role in scientific justification. In fact, we've known for some time the 'story' being told is not really like the actual practice of science, though it is true that many scientists still fail to appreciate this point. In addition, some critics of the received view have claimed that the involvement of value judgements, based on cultural, personal and/or religious convictions, in science makes the distinction between discovery and justification suspect, and they question whether the distinction plays a useful role if confirmation does involve value judgements. Theorists such as Thomas Kuhn and Paul Feyerabend produced views that highlight the extent to which what we call science is constituted by factors that seem to fall outside the realm of justification. These theorists focused on the extent to which science is not independent of who does it. This led them to question how the identity of a scientist can shape which of our hypotheses or theories pass for scientific knowledge, and raised questions about the real level of objectivity in science. W.V.O. Quine also raised questions about how autonomous science is from the other subjects about which we theorize, such as our metaphysical commitments. He suggested that science is not separable from other beliefs we hold. These ideas - from Kuhn and Quine and others — gave rise to questions about the objectivity of science, and these doubts arose well within what is sometimes considered traditional philosophy of science.9 Even though what I'm calling traditional philosophers of science were well aware of the thorny issues involving the objectivity (or subjectivity) of science, some of the best and clearest explications of how and why science fails to be objective, and what we can do about it, have come from feminist theorists. Initially, feminists became interested in this discussion when the issue of gender was suggested as a possible factor in determining what counts as scientific knowledge, or how gender might possibly be playing a role in the pursuit of (objective) scientific knowledge. In particular, sexism was believed to be playing some kind of role in

Background

11

science. (Here, 1*11 use the term 'sexism' only as indicative that some assumption about the superiority of one gender is being made where there is no conclusive evidence for that assumption.) Feminists began to criticize the ways in which science excluded women, ignored scientific issues pertaining to women (mostly in the area of medicine), and the ways in which societal views of women influenced scientific theories and problem choices. This led to a broader question about the real objectivity of science: if science is so objective, we wondered, how did all these sexist views seep into it? What resulted from this question and others like it was a myriad of feminist ideas about what objectivity really is (or is not), how much objectivity we should expect in science and even views that deny science is objective at all. Somewhat unclear and often deliberately undefined views of objectivity permeate feminist philosophy of science. In the chapters that follow, I will examine various feminist views of objectivity, how their views of objectivity are used and referenced in their larger feminist theories and how we might use their whole views (of which objectivity is only a part) to form a network of ideas, in order to better understand objectivity's role in what we might generally call 'science'. In general, then, this text examines feminist ideas regarding how to revise and enrich the concept of objectivity, and how these suggestions help to achieve both feminist and scientific goals.

Influences on Some Feminist Views of Objectivity Before discussing individual feminist accounts of objectivity, it is helpful to explore the reasons objectivity has become the focus of so much attention and the target of so much criticism among (feminist) epistemologists and philosophers of science. In this chapter, I will briefly outline what I take to be the motivating discussions behind the initial feminist critiques of science, as well as those that placed objectivity at the centre of so many debates about the role of gender in science. My main point in doing so is not to argue for or against any particular philosophical view of science, but to show that much of what feminists

12

Objectivity in the Feminist Philosophy of Science

have criticized in science was already being criticized by those not particularly concerned with feminism, a fact that is somewhat unappreciated within feminist philosophy of science. Looking at the groundwork for the feminist critiques of science is also useful for getting a broader picture of the objectivity terrain, and not just from the feminist perspective. The general issues and problems that arise from trying to discern the extent to which science is objective, how objectivity is undermined and how to attain it, serve to underscore just how troublesome the notion of the objectivity of science is for philosophers. The depth and breadth of this problem will highlight the fact that feminist views of science and objectivity are part of a complex, overall body of theories and ideas about objectivity in science, that are complementary, not contrary, to much of what could be called 'traditional' or 'mainstream' philosophy of science.

The Influence of Quine Many theorists treat Quine's insight as having been fatal to the analytic/synthetic distinction, as he argued that one could not really draw a boundary between analytic and synthetic statements, on the grounds that the distinction could not be drawn in any straightforward manner. 10 In addition to arguing against the analytic/synthetic distinction, Quine argued that confirmation cannot be the result of individual statements confronting experience, but rather that theories must confront experience as a whole. So, if the predictions of a theory fail, we know only that something in the theory is wrong, but not precisely what is wrong. Quine concluded that since logic and experience (or empirical data) cannot tell us what is wrong in any given theory7, something else must dictate our choice about which part of the theory needs revision. And, because logic and evidence alone cannot tell us what is wrong with a theory that fails certain experimental tests, Quine concluded that all theories are underdetermined by the evidence, and argued that science could not be characterized in the reductionist fashion favoured by the logical positivists. Hence, Quine claimed that when we encounter experiences contrary to a given theory, we have a lot of 'latitude of choice' as to which statements we ought to revise or eliminate.11 Indeed, Quine

Background

13

thought that any statement was subject to revision, including the socalled analytic statements of mathematics and logic. It is this latitude and potential for revision that some theorists - feminists included have seen as an opening for cultural or personal bias or values to enter into science. Since experience and logic alone do not uniquely determine which theories ought to comprise science, these theorists view as reasonable the task of asking questions about what kinds of extraempirical factors may be assisting us in our theory selection, including cultural and personal bias, interests or values. In addition to being influenced by Quine's holism, some theorists have utilized Quine's arguments regarding the 'rubbing out of boundaries' to introduce cultural and personal interests, bias and values into our philosophical discussions about the objectivity of science. In 'Epistemology Naturalized', Quine argued that epistemology should be treated as a 'chapter of psychology and hence natural science', such that if we want to see how evidence relates to theories, for example, we should start with some theory we know and see how we got there.12 Quine, then, views epistemology as having merged with psychology and linguistics, and talks of the rubbing out of boundaries between these fields as a way to procure (philosophical) progress. Lynn Nelson has taken Quine's views further and argued that the only boundary Quine appreciated - that between science and values - really should be eliminated. While Nelson admits that Quine thought science stood aloof from values, she thinks this was a mistake on his part, arguing (using Quine's point) that there is enough 'slack' between theories and evidence to make the identity of the researchers (the 'who') material to how scientific theories are developed and accepted.14 On this view, since the individuals who are doing science must do so from within a historically and socially located framework, some theorists (notably feminists) have concluded that the cultural and personal values of groups or individuals doing science play a role in the determination of what counts as science. Furthermore, these theorists argue that the role of such values and interests needs to be examined and analysed in order to really understand what shapes science and to formulate a more comprehensive conception of objectivity than what has been suggested by the received view.

14

Objectivity in the Feminist Philosophy ofScience

In addition, Louise Antony has argued that if we had to rely only on logic and empirical evidence alone to decide our theories, we would have too much to say about the world to make any sense of it at all. We would be stuck, for example, reporting the temperature of the laboratory, how many electrical outlets it contained, when the walls were repainted and the floors last washed. We would be stuck in a cacophony of data inputs, and would have the impossible task of reporting things that would seem to the average science student totally irrelevant to the experiment described in the lab book. And this is the point: with only data, we'd be lost among numerous different (and sometimes incompatible) theories about that data. With only logic and sensory experience, we wouldn't get anywhere in science and a totally open mind would lead us absolutely nowhere.15 The point Antony makes is, I think, terribly under-appreciated by popular conceptions of science, and even by scientists themselves. In the first case, popular characterizations of science often laud the 'just-the-facts' nature of scientific research, as if the facts simply announce themselves as relevant to the hypothesis or problem at hand. Scientists also often hold up their view as the one that is supported by the facts, and argue that this should be enough to convince us. But one person's fact is another person's fiction (think about evolution versus creation science) and it isn't at all clear that we would have any way of organizing sensory data if we didn't first have some general sense of what Tacts' are relevant to a given idea, guess, hypothesis or problem. This is why even undergraduate chemistry majors do not record in their lab books the brand of paint used on the walls, or the age of the light bulbs or where the glassware was manufactured in their lab books; those facts are, prima facie, treated as irrelevant, because that general sense of what is relevant is already in place before the collection of data begins. (In fact, I would argue that if this one point could be more fully appreciated and acknowledged by mainstream research and education about science, it would go a long way to demystifying science, and placing the objectivity of science in a more realistic light. But this means giving up a fair amount of epistemological, intellectual exclusivity, which has proven to be quite unattractive to mainstream science.)

Background

15

On these views, what we have to help us make sense of this noise of data is what Quine calls a 'scientific heritage', or other beliefs we hold true that mitigate what we are or are not willing to say about the world.16 These beliefs may not be scientific at all, since Quine believes our entire body of knowledge faces the tribunal of experience together, and not in distinct statements about the world. On this view, what we call scientific knowledge is only a part of a more general type of knowledge, but they are all woven together in the same fabric or field of force. Quine5 s approach to epistemology, then, was to treat knowledgeseeking as the empirical investigation ofknowers. This 'naturalization' of epistemology would require that we look long and hard at what we do to accomplish knowledge. So, following Quine, some theorists have suggested that if we want to know about scientific knowledge, we must look at what scientists actually do to generate such knowledge; this empirical investigation tells us all about scientific knowledge. Quine's ideas provided feminists with a conceptually based motivation for examining the role of social factors such as gender in science. Based on the suggestion that we should empirically investigate what scientists do to produce scientific knowledge, then, what did we find? As Quine suggested, when we look at what scientists actually do to produce scientific knowledge, we find instances where scientists are more than willing to hold on to beliefs that conflict with experience, and that they do not treat their investigations as purely driven by attention to sensory data, and this is the starting point for many feminist inquiries into science, objectivity and the role of cultural and personal values in science. For the work that provides feminists with a historically based motivation for the feminist critiques of science, then, Til turn now to Thomas Kuhn, whose work emphasized the actual practice of scientists and its failure to meet the mandates of the received view.

The Influence of Kuhn The idea that cultural or personal interests and values influence the justification of our theories in science is closely related to issues in objectivity: if science contains interests and values, and if our theories

16

Objectivity in the Feminist Philosophy ofScience

are themselves justified on the basis of something other than logic, reason, or empirical facts, then perhaps science is not all that objective. Many theorists have promulgated views to the effect that scientific theories and claims are not interest- or value-free, or that they are not fully objective. In particular, Thomas Kuhn's work on the role of social, political and personal values in scientific practice is frequently cited as having laid groundwork for feminist charges concerning questions about the objectivity of science. In his book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Kuhn explored the ways in which values are inherent in science.18 He argued that theory or what he called 'paradigm' acceptance and the practice of science in general does not depend solely on empirical evidence, and that we cannot ignore the context of discovery and still have a complete picture of what goes on in science.19 In fact, Kuhn suggested that the very distinction between discovery and justification is suspect. Kuhn argued that many social, political, personal and suspiciously 'nonscientific' factors have contributed to the progress of science and the way in which it is practised. Kuhn's historical account of science emphasizes the extent to which observations are influenced by some theory or other that guides how one views the data: 'What a man sees depends both upon what he looks at and also upon what his previous visual-conceptual experience has taught him to see'.20 The theory-ladenness of observation that Kuhn finds evident in historical accounts of scientific practice is supposed to account for how cultural and personal factors find their way into science. For Kuhn, this is because the kinds of theories that can affect one's interpretation of the data can be highly cultural or personal, and not merely reflective of allegiances to certain scientific theories. Rather, one's problem choice, interpretation of observations, as well as what one deems appropriate scientific behaviour, can be reflective of allegiances to beliefs that do not seem all that scientific or even pretend to be rooted in evidence or the bare facts of the matter. So, Kuhn did not just highlight the theory-ladenness of observations, though he did so quite well. He also emphasized the role that individual and cultural interests played in scientific progress, interests and values that seem to belong in the context of discovery.

Background

17

An illustration of the kinds of interests and values operating in science that Kuhn felt were essential to really understanding science can be found in the details of the 'Gopernican Revolution'. The motions and directions of our planets were of interest to early humans for both agricultural and navigational purposes; for these practical interests, simply knowing the positions of the stars, Sun, and Moon was sufficient.21 But as early as 1900 B.C., astronomers noticed that some stars appeared to move eastward, then loop back in a westward direction, finally looping back again in the eastward direction.22 This retrograde motion troubled the Greeks, who viewed the world as entirely orderly; and this retrograde motion just didn't fit well with their beliefs about the orderly nature of the cosmos. So, providing a model of the universe that explained, among other things, the retrograde motion of the planets became a serious project for the Greeks, among them Eudoxus, Callipus, Aristotle, Appollonius, Hipparchus and Heraclides. The Greeks had some specific requirements about the order of nature, founded in what is called Pythagoreanism, which itself stemmed from the influence of the mathematician Pythagorus, who believed that mathematics could be used to understand the universe.2 In particular, adherents to Pythagoreanism held the view that the planets must move in perfect circular motion and with uniform speed. The Greeks were so committed to this view - this value placed on circular motion and uniform speed - that all of the models of the universe they suggested to account for the retrograde motion of the planets incorporated these two requirements.24 However, these requirements were not based on empirical data or evidence to suggest their necessity, but rather based on a strong desire on the part of their proponents to simply fulfill them. (Modern interpretations of this adherence may simply account for it by brushing it aside as a failure of immature scientists living in a mystical and strange time, but the history of science including that of the twentieth century - is rife with examples ofjust this sort of thing.) Of course, there were also many empirical restrictions on these models. The model had to account for precise locations in which certain planets were observed at certain times, for the sun appearing more northerly or southerly given certain seasonal changes, and for

18

Objectivity in the Feminist Philosophy of Science

the sun's completion of certain movements in just about 365 days. The motion of the moon also had to be accurately accounted for, as well as that of the visible planets.25 The commitment to perfect circular motion and uniform speed continued to be a factor in determining which models were correct. Models influenced by Pythagoreanism had to account for retrograde motion by introducing a number of epicycles into the picture - perfect circles off the path of the main orbital that planets were thought to travel, which looked something like this (see Figure 1.1) :

Figure 1.1

By the end of the third century B.C., astronomers had narrowed down the list of possible models of the cosmos to four mathematical models. First, there was that of Eudoxus, whose model served as the 'orthodox geocentric' model; second, the modified version of Apollonius and Hipparchus; third, the partial heliocentric system proposed by Heraclides; and fourth, the heliocentric model proposed by Aristarchus.26 Essentially, all of these systems were accurate in their predictions to some significant extent, but failed to be accurate in other ways. However, the influence of Aristotle proved crucial for the acceptance of the Eudoxian system. Aristotle chose this system as the correct one because of several factors, including the popularity of the Eudoxian system, the observational evidence that supported it and the fact that it fit nicely with other beliefs Aristotle had about motion and physics that necessitated an Earth-centred universe. Finally, the Eudoxian system did not violate the paradigm of perfect circles and uniform motion.27 So, in spite of not being able to account for the increase in brightness of planets in retrograde motion, the combined Aristotelian-Eudoxian cosmological model of the universe provided a basic guide for astronomy for several centuries.28

Background

19

Eventually, Ptolemy (A.D. 85-165) advanced this model to include over 80 circles and various combinations of epicycles, giving a somewhat convoluted geometric scheme. However, the Ptolemaic system was much more successful than all previous models in explaining and predicting astronomical phenomena, and could still be used today with only a single degree of error for many calculations. However, one troubling aspect of the Ptolemaic system was its violation of the uniform motion paradigm. Add to this the fact that Aristotle proposed a crystalline sphere that was supposed to support each planet, and it became a problem to explain how planets could circle a point on this sphere without crashing into it. Ronald Pine explains these troubles and the survival of the Ptolemaic system in spite of them: So the majority of astronomers and natural philosophers did what most scientists would do today: They accepted what made sense (a central Earth) as real and used what did not make sense (the physical epicycle) as a 'calculation device', as a tool for making predictions. This viewpoint dominated much of the Middle Ages. The Catholic Church, the most powerful political and intellectual force of the time, adopted the Earth-centered model not only because of the authority of Aristotle, common sense, and scripture - where else would God put his special creatures but in the center of things? - but also because it worked. The puzzling mathematical aspects were relegated to instruments of prediction. 30 So, adherence to the Ptolemaic system was not uniquely indicated by a fit with the observed data: other competing theories also fit with the facts. However, the Ptolemaic system proved to be compelling for reasons Kuhn viewed as unique to a culture or society. Eventually, many modifications were made to the Ptolemaic system to account for observational discrepancies, the result of which was a model of the cosmos that was not aesthetically pleasing - it was a mess of epicycles, eccentrics and equants. 31 Many centuries after Ptolemy, Copernicus (1473-1543) focused on the possibility that Earth was not the centre of the universe, and suggested that the cosmos was heliocentric. Adjusting the planets accordingly, and adhering to Pythagoreanism, Copernicus developed

20

Objectivity in the Feminist Philosophy ofScience

a model of the cosmos that seemed simpler and more mathematically elegant than the Ptolemaic system.32 To some, the fact that Copernicus' model was more aesthetically pleasing became evidence for its correctness. However, it was not more accurate than Ptolemy's in terms of its match to observation of the planets. 33 It is worth emphasizing here that accuracy alone was not enough to make a decision regarding either of the two theories. In fact, it was not until the 1600s, based on the work of Kepler, that the Copernican model was revised sufficiently to provide it the status of the correct model of the universe. But, Kepler had to commit heresy to get there: perfect circles and uniform motion simply would not work. Using the elliptical shape and variable speeds, Kepler was able to provide the structure of the universe that could account for both observational and mathematical behaviour of the planets.34 Obviously, the planets provided a complex and confusing array of movements for which an account was required. As one historian notes of these complexities, It is clear, however, that only a strong faith in the order of the cosmos could sustain students of Plato in tackling this problem . . . [T]he religious and philosophical ideas of the ancient Greeks encouraged precise observation of the eccentric motion of the planets and sustained the belief that the use of reason would eventually result in an explanation.35 Here we have our first glimpse at the part of this historical account that has been emphasized in Kuhn's work: faith in an orderly cosmos and in the use of reason to procure an explanation drove these early astronomers to seek solutions to the problems created by all available models of the cosmos. While some might maintain that this kind of commitment to religious and philosophical ideas is best placed in the context of discovery, Kuhn argued that commitments - either cultural or individual - of this sort play a much more integral role in science than what is characterized by lumping it into the 'context of discovery'. Additional aspects of the Copernican Revolution story highlight just why Kuhn was so troubled by the division between discovery

Background

21

and justification. Though the Ptolemaic system lasted 1,400 years, it was clearly a survivor for reasons other than its fit with the observed data. Its adherence to certain interests and values - perfectly circular motion, for example - played a role it its success. But, also, commitment to uniform speed, and the failure of the Ptolemaic system to conform to this value, prompted uneasiness and subsequent 'improvement' of the Ptolemaic system. Issues of predictive value seem unclearly determined by any of the competing models, since they all had relatively good predictive value, and some of the geocentric models produced mathematical accuracy that is remarkable given that Earth is not the centre of the universe. In fact, both the Ptolemaic and Copernican systems were accurate with an error of approximately one 1 per cent.36 Based on this part of the story, then, we can see why Kuhn would claim that science is not driven or determined by fit with the data or accuracy alone. Also, the inelegant nature of some of the models, which were laden with what seemed to be ad hoc additions of epicycles, was taken as evidence that those models couldn't be correct. For example, one element of the Copernican system that was taken to be indicative that it was correct was its seeming simplicity. However, simplicity is a relative notion: even the Copernican system required some 'questionable mathematical devices', as well as numerous deferents, epicycles and eccentrics. To have considered the Copernican model simpler than the Ptolemaic system seems like a value judgement based on desired ends, which themselves were not determined by a neutral body of data. Commitments to certain types of motions and speeds, various interpretations of the phenomena against which accuracy and simplicity were judged, as well as the initial faith in the order of the cosmos that had to exist in order to even prompt the attempts to create a model of the universe are the types of factors that Kuhn felt the received view erroneously placed outside of science. And this is Kuhn's point: the history of science does not fit well with the idealized version of science suggested by the received view. Kuhn claimed that trying to apply these contexts to actual scientific practice proved futile: 'Yet my attempts to apply [the distinction between the contexts of discovery and justification] to the actual

22

Objectivity in the Feminist Philosophy ofScience

situations in which knowledge is gained, accepted and assimilated have made them seem extraordinarily problematic.' 37 Elsewhere, Kuhn argues that the distinction between the contexts of discovery and justification does not provide a plausible and useful idealization of science.38 It would be perfectly reasonable for one to note that the received view of science is prescriptive, whereas Kuhn's historical account of science is descriptive, thus calling into question the relevance of Kuhn's theories for justifying our theories: we may, in spite of our efforts, allow values and idiosyncratic features of ourselves to seep into our theories, but it certainly isn't what we desire to do, nor what we think we ought to do when practising science. Just because scientists follow the method of science imperfectly doesn't mean that the positivist model of ideal science is wrong or inadequate. Indeed, many critics have accused Kuhn of making what is considered an illegitimate leap from what is to what ought to be. What muddies these waters is Kuhn's own insistence that he was prescribing how science should proceed as well as describing scientific practice. In a postscript note to The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Kuhn specifically states that there are places where 'the normative and the descriptive are inextricably mixed', and that 'is' and 'ought' 'are by no means always so separate as they have seemed'.39 Kuhn then claims that his historical view of science, which illustrates how scientists can and do succeed even with the influence of interests and values so plainly operating in science, is also a prescription for what scientists ought to do if they want to be successful. Finally, he states that his theory is one that actually resembles the practice of science, and he views this as further evidence that his view is correct.40 In short, Kuhn takes his theory to be prescriptive, and, as such, sees his own view as contrary to the received view. Indeed, if Kuhn's views are interpreted as being merely descriptive, then his accounts say little about how science should be practised. By recounting historical facts surrounding scientific progress and practice, Kuhn hoped we would appreciate the significant role played by cultural and personal interests, values and ideologies. It is through examples, such as the one provided by the sequence of events that led to the Copernican Revolution, that we are given some insight

Background

23

into why Kuhn was so troubled by the distinction between the contexts of discovery and justification, and why Kuhn argued against the received view of science. Set aside for now the well-known critiques of Kuhn's work - for example, that he uses the concept of paradigm too loosely or that he fails to show that competing theories are (radically) incommensurable. Instead, here I want to focus on this feature of his work: his insistence on the influence of both individual and cultural interests and values in the progression of science. Kuhn did not think that what goes on in discovery was somehow to be removed from science through the cleansing process of justification. Rather, he thought that science could not progress or succeed without the influence of the scientists who practise it, an influence that isn't entirely rooted in logic and evidence, but can be a product of cultural or religious beliefs, personal commitments to certain views or ideas and the like. For Kuhn, this is not only acceptable, but also necessary; scientists cannot function without certain interests and values, and a proper model of science ought to account for this. He argues that his view of science has many advantages, one among them being that it does not treat actual scientific practice as anomalous to the ideal, and another that it recognizes the role played by values when criteria choice cannot be mitigated by logic and evidence alone.41

Feminist Epistemology and Post-Kuhnian Stories Feminist theorists (and many other non-feminist theorists) have viewed Kuhn's work as grounds for questioning and/or abandoning the ideal 'objective' science prescribed by the received view of science. Though the debate about whether the contexts of discovery and justification should be separated has not been settled, many feminist philosophers of science maintain there is one thing that Kuhn's work has shown: historical evidence illustrates the role cultural or individual commitments, beliefs, values and subjective preferences play in the practice of science, and prompts questions about the acclaimed objectivity of science.

24

Objectivity in the Feminist Philosophy ofScience

Moreover, feminist critics have held that Quine's suggestions regarding both the underdetermination of theories by the evidence and naturalizing epistemology, coupled with Kuhn's historical account of science, force us to address the role of cultural and personal values - of objectivity itself- in science. Feminists who are engaged in carefully analysing both the empirical and social factors that seem to affect scientific knowledge have taken seriously Quine's insistence that we empirically study what scientists are doing in order to learn how to properly characterize science. Moreover, Kuhn's insistence that separating discovery from justification is implausible and not useful has been interpreted to mean that science is not so objective after all. Some feminist theorists take the historical accounts of science as evidence that the justification of science requires appeals to (subjective) interests and values, resulting in science itself being necessarily subjective. A purely objective science unmarked by interests and values does not, on this view, exist. One might ask, 'So what?', since the unattainable nature of ideals is rarely cause for abandoning such ideals, but the point I'm making here is simply that the critique of the objectivity of science has taken centre stage in many feminist theories about science. This is likely because, based on the work of Quine and Kuhn's insistence on the role of interests and values as necessary for scientific progress, we are left with an opening for a perspectival kind of science: the community must appeal to non-objective factors to settle theory debates and to allow science to progress, so some perspective on what values are relevant must exist. As Evelyn Fox Keller states: [t]he possibility of extending the feminist critique into the foundations of scientific thought is created by recent developments in the history and philosophy of science itself . . . The work of Russell Hanson and Thomas S. Kuhn was of pivotal importance in opening up our understanding of scientific thought to a consideration of social, psychological and political influences. As long as the course of scientific thought was judged to be exclusively determined by its own logical and empirical necessities, there could be no place for any signature, male or otherwise, in that system of knowledge ... But as the philosophical and historical inadequacies of the classical

Background

25

conception of science have become more evident, and as historians and sociologists have begun to identify the ways in which the development of scientific knowledge has been shaped by its particular social and political context, our understanding of science as a social process has grown. This understanding is a necessary prerequisite, both politically and intellectually, for a feminist theoretic in science.42 What is relevant to feminists critiquing science is the idea that gender or sex is one of the subjective factors that can affect one's judgements in science, and therefore affect the objectivity of science. The 'feminist theoretic in science' involves, among other things, the view that being of one sex rather than another gives one certain social and perhaps political values, beliefs and plausibility judgements that one might otherwise not have. These non-empirical factors allegedly contribute to some theory choices, descriptions and methods, which in turn are alleged to threaten the traditional concept of objectivity in science. (It is to be noted that some theorists have suggested that the Kuhnian view need not apply only to natural science: social scientists, psychologists and even epistemologists have applied Kuhn's ideas to their respective fields.43 Consequently, most contemporary feminist theories of science are not applied exclusively to natural science, but to anthropology, sociology and psychology, where thesefieldsare understood to be fundamentally affected, perhaps even determined, by subjective (non-objective) factors, not just empirical facts and objective reasoning.) Rather than claim any allegiance to a particular interpretation or application of Quine or Kuhn, my intention here is to underscore how their views have motivated and underpinned the feminist critiques of science. In addition, these views serve as points of origin for the scrutiny surrounding the concept of objectivity in science. The feminist critiques themselves are interesting - they cite case after case of sexist and androcentric views that have leaked into supposedly objective theories and descriptions of our natural and social world but the more interesting results are the views feminists have developed about objectivity itself.

Chapter 2

Power and Objectivity

There has been confusion and consternation about objectivity for feminists ever since we began to suspect that the perfectly 'objectively true' view that women aren't as rational as men turned out to be, well, not all that objective, and not all that true. What we've come to accept - and I don't think this is a view that only philosophers can appreciate - is that the facts of the matter often depend a great deal on who is looking at the facts. That is, when we engage in inquiries into how our world is constructed and how it operates, these epistemic inquiries are influenced by not just the raw data of the world, but by our human perceptions of that raw data. So, when we realize how imperfectly we practise being objective - how imperfectly implemented objectivity is in our epistemic inquiries - we begin to get confounded over what to do with objectivity, how to improve it and, for feminists, how all of this matters to issues of gender. As work in the history of science has suggested - and what as I highlighted in Chapter 1 with regard to Kuhn's work - scientists are in the somewhat unfortunate role of being both objective and subjective observers. Their scientific training inclines them towards objective observation, but philosophical and empirical investigation into this requirement has shown this to be an imperfect enterprise, marked by subjective or non-empirical factors that are difficult to explain away and still retain the received view of science. But theorists who affirm the shortcomings of the received view of science do not have to give up the enterprise of saying something meaningful about objectivity in science. In what follows, I will give some basic reasons for feminists to be interested in objectivity. In particular, I will suggest that feminists can benefit from constructing more robust, enriched concepts of objectivity than those available in the tradition. In later chapters,

Power and Objectivity

27

I'll examine these enriched concepts of objectivity, but for now, I want to establish some general reasons feminists are interested in objectivity, based primarily on the critique of objectivity as found in the work of the legal scholar Catherine MacKinnon.

Power a n d Facts In Toward a Feminist Theory oj State, MacKinnon explicitly addresses a version of objectivity that is characteristic of both traditional philosophy of science and epistemology as well as many feminist theories. She addresses this version as follows: Scientific epistemology defines itself in the stance of 'objectivity5, whose polar opposite is subjectivity. Socially, men are considered objective, women subjective. Objectivity as a stance toward the world erects two tests to which its method must conform: distance and aperspectivity. To perceive reality accurately, one must be distant from what one is looking at and view it from no place and at no time in particular, hence from all places and times at once. 1 Here, MacKinnon is characterizing objectivity as the stance from which objective facts will be produced, namely as the distanced, aperspectival position or non-ideological viewpoint. This is related to the version of objectivity required by the received view of science, since under the received view scientists must not allow their cultural and personal interests or values to enter into science. On this interpretation of the received view, one should take the stance of a distanced knower, of one who has no preconceived ideas or biases about how the empirical tests and research should result. MacKinnon claims that, in practice, objectivity really characterizes the male view. She explains: The content of the feminist theory of knowledge begins with its criticism of the male point of view by criticizing the posture that has been taken as the stance of 'the knower' in Western political thought. [This is] the neutral posture, which I will be

28

Objectivity in the Feminist Philosophy ofScience

calling objectivity - that is, the nonsituated, distanced standpoint. I'm claiming that this is the male standpoint socially.2 MacKinnon's concern here is that what we call the 'objective view' in reality turns out to be the male view, and calling this male view 'objective' obscures the fact that it is a gendered view after all.3 As MacKinnon puts it, '[t]he point of science, as I get it, has been to replace opinion with certainty, to replace religion and faith with the empirical hard stuff'. MacKinnon's worry is that science will not get to certainty and the 'empirical hard stuff' as long as we fail to recognize that certain views that appear objective may not, in fact, be so objective after all. Quine and Kuhn have argued that the empirical hard stuff does not make sense without some subjective soft stuff. But MacKinnon's point is that men have been able to make it appear as if their views are the empirical hard stuff, when in fact their views are often, at least partially, mere opinion or a reflection of masculine (or misogynist) values or beliefs. So, MacKinnon's worry is not the same as Quine's or Kuhn's; that is, she is not trying to provide for us a new conception of science that makes more sense, given scientific practice, than the received view. Rather, she alleges that the male view (often) gets treated as the objective view, and is trying to articulate the mechanism for this phenomenon.

Creating Facts How does MacKinnon think that men get to do this? That is, how is it that their views wind up looking like the objective, and therefore correct, views, even when they aren't? According to MacKinnon, this is a direct result of the gender inequality in our society, specifically as it regards the sexualized gender roles into which women are forced by men.5 MacKinnon claims that, in our culture, men have more power and authority than women, and they can use this power to force women into gender roles that may or may not be commensurate with what women actually want or would choose for themselves if men didn't prescribe these roles for women.6

Power and Objectivity

29

For MacKinnon, this social and cultural power is connected to facts, because what is taken to be factual is influenced by what individuals think about data, and individuals are not immune to the force and influence of power. Power gives people intellectual authority, an authority that can often take the place and do the work of actual evidence. I think of this as scientific sloppiness about the confirmation or proving of a view, because (unexamined) views without good evidence get by as science when those with intellectual authority support them. As MacKinnon explains: Having power means, among other things, that when someone says, 'This is how it is', it is taken as being that way. When this happens in law, such a person is accorded what is called credibility. When that person is believed over another speaker, what was said becomes proof. Speaking socially, the beliefs of the powerful become proof, in part because the world actually arranges itself to affirm what the powerful want to see.7 This passage highlights what we all know to be true: that individuals who have credibility have a kind of power, power that allows their views - beliefs, opinions, conjectures, or even explicit statements of fact - to be taken as proof. So, when someone with credibility says 'this is so', we believe 'this is so'. But MacKinnon is saying more than just this: she is drawing attention to circumstances that allow those in powerful social or political positions to create the illusion that their views are facts. She is not saying that this is always what people in power do, but that it happens often enough that it deserves critical attention. Here's how she thinks it works: First, those in power treat subordinates in ways that actually get subordinates to conform to the views the powerful have of them. Second, MacKinnon emphasizes the ability the powerful have to silence or ignore those who might challenge their view. Without discordant voices, there appears to be consensus about the views of the powerful, and this consensus is taken to be a mark of the 'objectivity' of a view. Combined with the power that comes from credibility, which itself is built on reputation, past performance, education, professional

30

Objectivity in the Feminist Philosophy ofScience

pedigree and general consensus agreement from others in the field, MacKinnon also thinks that social power is at work here. So, it isn't just one's scientific prowess that contributes to one's intellectual power, but one's social position, as well. For MacKinnon, gender is a major factor in determining just what that social position will grant some power, a lot of power, limited power, or no power - but we could surmise that race, religion and other factors also contribute to one's social position and how one's voice is regarded by others. To see how MacKinnon's views can be used to understand what can go wrong in science when social and political power override our best intentions, we'll turn to the case of Sir Cyril Burt.

The Case of Sir Cyril Burt Sir Cyril Burt was convinced that intelligence is innate, but failed to treat this view as a hypothesis - an error not altogether uncommon in science, but one that Burt let go too far. Instead, he treated it as a foregone conclusion, a view popular among his contemporaries, and throughout his career treated his 1909 study as having established that intelligence is innate. 8 However, his study was flawed on logical grounds (circular reasoning) and because his data was 'scant and superficial'.9 Later in his career, Burt claimed to have studied fiftythree pairs of identical twins raised apart (a scientist's dream), in hopes of finding evidence to prove that intelligence is hereditary. Instead offindingsuch evidence, Burt fabricated the data on identical twins, the kinship correlations in IQ, and declining levels of intelligence in Britain.1 In spite of the terrible science behind his conclusion, Burt's view was long held as the correct view of intelligence, and many reputable scientists had already used his research as adjuncts to their own. The ripple effect of his poorly done and false science was felt throughout much of the twentieth century in the scientific community. Imagine having cited Burt's work in your own, only to have his ultimately completely discredited, which in turn calls into question - or, perhaps even discredits - the work of anyone who had referenced or used his conclusions about intelligence being innate. The fact that Burt was a fraud meant that dozens of other scientific studies, books,

Power and Objectivity

31

research programmes, papers and texts were rendered useless and incredible. This is no small thing in the scientific world. However, the part of this story I find most interesting isn't that Burt was a fraud - surely there are many interesting cases of scientific fraud - but that his fraud went unnoticed for so long. As historians of this account have pointed out, it wasn't until 1976 that the charge of forgery was levelled at Burt, nearly seventy years from the timeafter his initial paper on inheritance published, and several years after the forged work had been published. Lest we think that the fraud was particularly well done so as to fool even the brightest scientists, consider this note from Stephen Jay Gould's account of Burt: [WJhile Burt had increased his sample of twins from fewer than twenty to more than fifty in a series of publications, the average correlation between pairs for IQremained unchanged to the third decimal place - a statistical situation so unlikely that it matches our vernacular definition of impossible.11 One would have thought Burt would at least have been clever enough to change the average correlation a bit so as to mimic real scientific data. In addition, why didn't anyone question how Burt, prior to the days of computerized, centralized data, was able to find so many pairs of twins raised apart? This claim alone seems so suspect that one would expect an outcry of disbelief from the scientific community, but no such outcry came during Burt's time. So, Burt's fraud wasn't even particularly well done, but sloppy and done with a surprising amount of confidence. But this is the point: Burt had a practical right (though not ethical right) to be confident, as no one questioned his views for many decades, nor did they question his highly questionable data. Burt's confidence came largely from his being a member of a group with a lot of intellectual and social power - in this case, white males - and this got him further than the actual merit of his work. This example illustrates the way consensus - in this case, consensus around a racist view - prevents the kind of critical attention that is supposed to push science towards ever-increasing objectivity (i.e., it illustrates what I claimed was the second way MacKinnon thinks the powerful can create 'facts', namely by ignoring or silencing objections

32

Objectivity in the Feminist Philosophy ofScience

that would likely have revealed problems with the view). Arguably the intellectual authority of all those supporting Burt's view led to that view becoming more and more entrenched and accepted even though the evidence behind the view was (or should have been) highly suspicious. It is difficult to know what those without racist views thought about Burt's views and research, but it is hard to imagine that this kind of fraud perpetrated in today's political climate could survive for very long. Imagine now a different story, one of a person of colour trying to publish work based on identical twins to show that intelligence is not innate, that indeed, genetics doesn't determine one's position in life, and that people of colour could therefore be equal to whites, for example. How long would fraudulent work supporting this conclusion have gone unnoticed? I think one could make a strong argument that it wouldn't have lasted nearly seventy years. As MacKinnon points out, 'Powerlessness means that when you say "This is how it is", it is not taken as being that way'. 12 Another way to think of this issue is to consider how little intellectual authority was had by people of colour (or women, perhaps) during the time of Burt's forgery, so little, in fact, that questions or problems arising from people of colour did not become part of the history of inquiries into race and intelligence in the early twentieth century. For MacKinnon, the problem doesn't end here, because she suggests that the world also has a tendency to rearrange itself to fit with what those in power are saying about it. For example, she claims that women behave in ways that affirm what men are telling them about themselves. She emphasizes the idea that women are complicit in their own oppression13: I think that sexual desire in women, at least in this culture, is socially constructed as that by which we come to want our own self-annihilation. That is, our subordination is eroticized in and as female; in fact, we get off on it to a degree, if nowhere near as much as men do. This is our stake in this system that is not in our interest, our stake in this system that is killing us. I'm saying femininity as we know it is how we come to want male dominance, which most emphatically is not in our interest.14

Power and Objectivity

33

If MacKinnon is right, we can see how troublesome and dangerous this is for women. On the picture MacKinnon has painted for us, not only do women live under domination by men, but they also contribute to their own oppression by finding erotic those things prescribed by men as erotic, and then acting them out. This in turn makes it look as if men's views of women are correct, since women are acting out the very roles men prescribe for them. MacKinnon's argument depends on the premise that men have real power over women.15 Being dominant gives one the opportunity to treat those who are not in power however one likes. So, supposing males are dominant, if they want to see females as sexual objects, then they have the power to treat them that way, and in fact do, according to MacKinnon. Moreover, the powerful can make demands such that the less powerful give them what they want, so on this view, it isn't merely a question of how people think about data, but what data are is ultimately created by how the powerful think. For example, if men find a submissive woman erotic, and they treat with approval those women who behave submissively, this approval will serve to create in women the desire to be submissive. The result is that women will act submissively in order to receive approval from men. Of course, MacKinnon must allow this to work in the other direction: if (powerful) men find assertive female behaviour erotic or appealing, their approval of this behaviour will serve to create in women the desire to be assertive. The problem, as MacKinnon sees it, is that men don't eroticize assertive or powerful behaviour in women, but instead treat as erotic only the submissive behaviour she finds so objectionable.16 On this view, our social system of domination serves to exaggerate gender (and race or class) differences in both perception and fact: those in power have perceptions of difference that serve their interests, while both the dominant and subordinate members of society act out roles that are deemed appropriate by those in power.17 MacKinnon concludes that both how people think (perception) and what people do (reality) are influenced, and in some ways determined, by the domination of women by men. This vicious circle of behaviour leaves us with the unsettling feeling that something just isn't quite right about all of this. That is, if what

34

Objectivity in the Feminist Philosophy of Science

women are in society is whatever men think and say they should be, then what could women be like without the influence of men? Even worse, if what the worldis like is whatever the dominant group thinks and says it should be, then what is the world like apart from what they think and say? For MacKinnon, we'll never know under our current social structure, because what we call the objective view of reality is too closely linked with the interests of those in power. Metaphorically, on her view, there is a cloak that is laid over our behaviour, and unless we change our social structure, we will not be able to see what is going on under that cloak. So, the point I have been highlighting here is MacKinnon's claim that it is too easy for people in power to use their dominance to create a reality that suits their interests. The necessary trick for this to work, of course, is that the dominant group must call their own view the objective viewpoint, and show what appear to be the relevant connections between their created reality and their claims about that reality. Of course, we may not realize when this is happening, as dominant males have been successful at performing the trick. Indeed, as MacKinnon explains: Thus the perspective from the male standpoint is not always each man's opinion or even some aggregation or sum of men's opinions, although most men adhere to it, nonconsciously and without considering it a point of view, as much because it makes sense of their experience (the male experience) as because it is in their interest. It is rational for them. Because it is the dominant point of view and defines rationality, women are pushed to see reality in its terms, although this denies their vantage point as women in that it contradicts at least some of their lived experience, particularly the experience of violation through sex.18 I take the important point from this passage to be the idea that members of the dominant gender unconsciously accept their own view as objective because it makes sense of their experience and is in their own interest. These two components alone make it seem rational for men to accept their own views as objective. MacKinnon further suggests that women will not feel this same level of comfort with objectivity, since it pushes them to see reality in

Power and Objectivity

35

a way that contradicts some of their experiences. For example, submissive behaviour in a woman may be good for some things - for pleasing a man, for avoiding criticism from men (and some women), for not having to assert one's will, etc. However, submissive behaviour sometimes results in (painful) situations that do not further the interests of the person displaying this behaviour. Some of the experiences of women teach them just this lesson: submissive behaviour does not always (or perhaps usually) work in a woman's interest, even though it may well please men. This is the contradiction MacKinnon is worried about. The experiences of women with actually being submissive do not seem as pleasant and comfortable as has been suggested by the male approval of such behaviour. As MacKinnon points out, even though males say this behaviour is good for women, the experiences of women often show this to be untrue. Here MacKinnon has suggested reasons that feminists should be interested in investigating objectivity and its relation to both domination and reality. That is, she has brought to light ways in which it seems too easy for a dominant group to make their views look like reality, when in fact these views may only be partial or perverted versions of reality. Of course, some of the views of the powerful might actually produce reliable or good or true theories about the real world. But if MacKinnon is right about the ability of the powerful to obscure facts, then with our current conception of objectivity alone, we cannot tell. That is, merely saying 'this is an objective view' doesn't guarantee us anything if we take seriously the criticisms that MacKinnon has levelled at objectivity. This is what I take to be the most important problem highlighted by MacKinnon, and any comprehensive attempt to revise the concept of objectivity should at least give us a way to assess the effect (if any) of personal, cultural or political power on science.

Wealth and Power Though MacKinnon does not address the connection between wealth and power, but rather focuses on gender and power, one should not underestimate the extent to which power may - like gender obstruct the pursuit of scientific objectivity. Moreover, there is an

36

Objectivity in the Feminist Philosophy ofScience

empirical connection between gender and wealth, and though this connection is clearly contingent, it is another indication that gender in part determines who has social, cultural and, as it turns out, scientific power. It is a fact that most wealth is held by males. One glance at any list that identifies the world's wealthiest people, and one immediately sees that males dominate the list. The same is true of the leadership of our corporations, universities and research institutions. By extension, this means that males control most or all of what gets spent on scientific research. Therefore, feminists ought to be interested in and aware of the implications of the link between wealth and power, though certainly this is a problem of interest to anyone seeking improvement in science. I am not suggesting that there is some organized effort on the part of males to obstruct science in a way that is either androcentric or misogynistic, but am simply making the point that the empirical connection between wealth and power is at least relevant to discussions about gender and power. In fact, my suspicion is that far from there being any organized effort to obstruct objectivity in science, the issue of wealth and power as it exists in the realm of scientific research has simply made bad science look like science-as-usual. But why think that wealth obstructs objectivity or creates bad science? Simply put, the problem is that when financial gain becomes part of what motivates and directs scientific research, it is difficult to see how the issue of bias could be kept out of science. A great deal of scientific research is undertaken to earn a profit, and not merely to gain knowledge for its own sake. This factor alone should make us wonder about how objective science is when profit is part of what is motivating research. To see how this plays out, consider an example taken from the field of pharmaceutical research and medical use of prescription medication. (Of course, one could point to other branches of science in which the type of financial gain that obstructs objectivity is simply not present, for example in the field of astronomy, where there is little or no monetary gain on a grand scale for ferreting out facts about, say, distant planets or other solar systems.) My point here is to highlight an area of science in which wealth or financial gain does

Power and Objectivity

37

obstruct or minimize scientific objectivity, and to then propose questions that feminists and non-feminists alike should be asking about how this could be changed and what philosophical positions might be taken and followed to change this problem. In his book Overdose: The Case Against the Drug Companies,19 Jay S.

Cohen, M.D. devotes an entire chapter to the ways in which drug companies slant drug research. Cohen argues says that the influence that drug companies wield over the (purportedly) scientific studies done on their products is 'so pervasive that in May 2000, Dr Marcia Angell, the editor in chief of The Mew England Journal of Medicine, published an article titled "Is Academic Medicine for Sale?" 5 . 20' 21 Cohen explains that [a]cademic medical institutions such as medical schools and teaching hospitals have traditionally conducted most studies of new drugs. Because of high ethical standards and independence from drug-company influence, the quality of information from academic medical research has always been considered high. Unfortunately, this is changing.22 He points to anecdotal evidence that it is increasingly difficult to find independent experts to review articles about specific drugs, when, as Dr Angell reports in one case, every expert contacted in one case has financial ties to some drug company. The cost of research is so great, and the drug companies are so wealthy, that even academic institutions are becoming more and more beholden to their financial benefactors. The response to Dr AngelPs article was overwhelmingly in agreement with her assessment that pharmaceutical companies have caused a breach in the way good, reliable scientific data used to be procured. Indeed, as Cohen points out, research proves that 'studies funded by drug companies provide favorable results for the companies' products significantly more often than studies conducted independently'.23 I will not reiterate here Cohen's extremely well-researched, compelling proof for the claim that drug companies effectively and routinely slant research in favour of their products, though the

38

Objectivity in the Feminist Philosophy ofScience

documented cases of this are startling and paint an ugly picture of science for sale. Rather, what I find philosophically interesting is this: Even in the face of damning evidence and public recognition of bias and bad science on the part of pharmaceutical companies, nothing substantive has been done to curtail the drug companies' attempts to, as MacKinnon puts it, 'create facts' amenable to their own views. This is, I believe, in part due to the pervasive and dangerous view that science is, regardless of who does it, objective. Why the scientific community tolerates the infection of scientific research with profit-driven criteria is a good question. There are practical reasons, ranging from the need for expensive research facilities and equipment, to competing for great scientists in a free market. But these practical answers aren't nearly as enlightening, I think, as the philosophical answer: we think science is by its very nature objective, insulated from the usual worries about bias, self-interest and fraud. So, we are extremely reluctant to treat its results as anything less than objective. Of course this view of science is over-simplified and, simply, false, and we should behave as if it is false, policing its results as we would market research, polling data and the like. But where science is concerned, there is a disconnection between what we know to be true, i.e., that science isn't immune from bias and value, and how we treat scientific results, i.e., as if they are, on the face of it, objective. I think this is a case where the received view of science has actually damaged the very tenets endorsed by the received view, since drug companies are in effect hiding behind the claim of having 'scientific results', but have not actually adhered to even the most rudimentary methods that might minimize bias and fraud in science. It is as if they are saying, 'Our results are scientific, and hence objective, because they are the result of scientific methods, and we know the methods are objective, because they give us scientific results'. What is glossed over, of course, and is the missing key premise that if examined properly would reveal the irrationality of the argument, is the premise that the scientific methods as outlined in the received view - the testing of data against hypotheses - themselves ensure maximally objective results, which we know is false.

Power and Objectivity

39

This is where a project that undertakes a re-examination of objectivity is so useful, and examples such as those that exist in the field of pharmaceutical research underscore the need to provide a more robust conception of objectivity than that which is currently and most generally accepted. Indeed, once we see that scientific practice does not guarantee scientifically objective results, we can start asking questions about how best to think of objectivity, in such a way that addresses both practical problems, like the ones found in Burt's work or the drug company cases, as well as philosophical problems, such as how to reconcile a view of science as being safe-guarded from bias with the reality that contradicts this. The issue of power, whether stemming from gender or wealth or some other form of social capital, should be one that gets addressed by a proper conception of objectivity, such that unfair or illegitimate power is weeded out of the process.

Should We Keep Objectivity? Many feminists are engaged in attempts to revise or enrich our conception of objectivity, thinking believing that such conceptual reform is necessary for improving the accuracy and reliability of our claims about the social and natural world. But failings in science based on gender-power and wealth-power issues may lead some to question whether we need to retain some idea of objectivity to do this. Once we realize how imperfectly we practise objectivity, we might think that our poor performance is a signal that something is deeply wrong with the whole idea of being able to get to reality by sifting through our perceptions and the evidence that supports them. Moreover, we might conclude from what MacKinnon has said that objectivity is hopelessly tied to what men (or the powerful) want. 24 Indeed, there is some ambivalence evident in MacKinnon's work about the extent to which 'objectivity' can be revised or changed to meet both the needs of feminists and/or of those involved in epistemic pursuits. On the one hand, MacKinnon sometimes talks as if male and female realities are so distinctive, so different in relevant ways, that

40

Objectivity in the Feminist Philosophy ofScience

to talk of a single reality as if it is that thing on which our theories and descriptions should be focused and judged is ineffective and inappropriate. To make sense of all this, consider this example. There are certain legal cases regarding rape, where it has proved difficult for courts to determine whether or not consent was given - a problem prevalent primarily in cases where a woman is raped by someone she knows, but present in other cases as well. To explain how men can be so mistaken (or at least confused) about whether consent was given, MacKinnon often points to the different worlds in which men and women live. Take for example what she says here: The line between subjective and objective perception which is supposed to divide the idiosyncratic, nonreplicable, religious, partial and unverifiable the unscientific - from the real presumes the existence of a single object reality and its noncontingence upon angle of perception. But if women's condition exists, there are (at least) two object realms of social meaning. Women's point of view is no more subjective than men's if women inhabit a sexdiscriminatory object reality. 25 Here, MacKinnon seems to be alluding to something other than a single object reality, perhaps two or more realities that give meaning to what we say about our experiences. On the other hand, MacKinnon clearly wants to be able to make truth claims about rape. If you take the distinct or multiple reality idea to its logical conclusion, the result is that there is no common truth-maker for anyone's claims about rape (or anything else), because there is no domain about which we are both talking. That is, once you give men their reality and women their different one, it becomes impossible to determine what to say about whether or not someone was raped. It also becomes difficult to know what to say about objectivity. If objectivity is supposed to be some stance - and this is the way MacKinnon characterizes it - it isn't clear what the stance is in relation to when there is more than one reality. Men will simply argue for their own objectivity based on reference to their reality and women will do likewise, and they'll both be right, which is just incoherent.

Power and Objectivity

41

(Furthermore, once you extend MacKinnon's arguments more generally so that 'the powerful' is defined as anyone with political, social and/or financial power, the problem becomes more complicated. On this scenario, we aren't just faced with male and female realities, but with reality as it is for 'the powerful' and reality as it is for 'the subjugated' - where the latter group may be comprised of women, people of colour, poor people, or some combination of various factors. The result of accepting this bifurcated or multiple reality view based on who has power and who doesn't just puts us in an even more confused state regarding our truth claims.) I think this ambivalence can be resolved. Consider a passage from the quote above regarding the presumption of'the existence of a single object reality and its noncontingence upon the angle of perception'. I suggest we recast the issue this way: we can accept the existence of a single object reality that itself is not contingent upon what we think or say about it, but also recognize that what we learn or believe or know about the world is contingent upon the angle of our perception. The angle of perception may be skewed, but that says nothing about the existence of a reality that exists apart from what we say about it. Of course, this means that pragmatic approaches to truth won't work for those like myself who will insist that objectivity doesn't just amount to agreement; we aren't willing to trade objectivity for solidarity, 26 This is because feminists are not just saying that they disagree with sexist views, but that these views are false. Indeed, the feminist critiques of science were founded on the view that what was wrong with sexist science was that it was false, not that there wasn't widespread agreement about its usefulness, adequacy, etc. What is so troubling is just how very useful and adequate many false views are, and merely having agreement about them doesn't alone give us reason to rest assured that they are true. Once the split or multiple reality is denied, we can go back to working on objectivity. That is, we can now say something - and something rather useful and interesting, I think - about how to improve our stance, with a keen eye towards how very skewed that stance might be, given the kind of social world in which we live. On this view, we don't have to worry about split realities, but we do have to worry about the extent to which our perceptions of that reality might

42

Objectivity in the Feminist Philosophy of Science

be drastically different - and now we have to be concerned with correcting or accounting for these differences in perception. And this is precisely where feminist scholarship has gone. Attempts to revise and enrich our concept of objectivity serve to indirectly challenge male domination by presenting alternate ways of thinking about traditionally masculine fields, by questioning the received view, and by showing just where we go wrong when we attempt to achieve (or think we are achieving) objectivity. This is at the heart of most of the feminist theories and critiques of science. Also, it is this approach - the indirect challenge to domination that is the backdrop for the feminist approaches to and revisions of objectivity that inform science and society in important and thoughtful ways, ways that are sensitive to feminist interests. This approach does not require us to drop our talk about objectivity or to see only male and female viewpoints as possible positions. Rather, because our current situation is a contingent fact of our world, we can attempt to change it by enriching our concept of objectivity, and calling into question assumptions about objectivity that have been stalling social and scientific progress all along. These important and powerful ventures are what we lose when we give up on objectivity altogether. MacKinnon's work also suggests that we need to increase women's political and intellectual power in order to ensure the presence of women's (discordant) voices. This will disrupt the false consensus among those who are in power, and bring to the table of discussion contending theories, competition with which will lead to something like genuine objectivity, or will at least - and this is what I take to be one of the crucial points - make us more aware of cultural and personal interests and values that permeate science. It will allow for variations of scrutiny that are left out when the powerful protect their own views from outsiders. MacKinnon's work is useful to the feminist theoretic as it regards objectivity, because it serves as a warning to us regarding the roles of gender politics in forming what we call the objective view as well as what we call science, though her view cannot be taken as (nor was it intended to be) providing a mechanism for revealing and assessing the role of interest and value in science.

Power and Objectivity

43

MacKinnon's view also shows us what is wrong with an unexamined version of objectivity, and why what has been called the objective view can become something else. She's claimed that powerful people can get subordinates to behave in certain ways, and, in addition, the powerful can silence or ignore the discordant views of their subordinates.27 MacKinnon's view also highlights the interesting psychological point about how those in power present their views, by in effect saying, 'This is how it is' instead of saying, 'This is how it is to me. How is it to you?'

Chapter 3

Breaking with Dogma

While the merits of MacKinnon's views on objectivity are largely in the form of a warning about how facts can be corrupted by power, the work discussed in this chapter presents an attempt to provide a better conception of objectivity than what is suggested by the received view. The view assessed here, put forth by Evelyn Fox Keller, presents an attempt to address the shortcomings of how objectivity operates (or does not operate) in science. As well, Keller suggests an alternate conception of objectivity with an eye towards a larger feminist agenda as well as a desire to show how this agenda is amenable and relevant to success in science. Keller's views of objectivity focus primarily on how scientists approach research, and so might be seen as relevant only to the context of discovery. But Keller views discovery and justification as inextricably linked and concludes that the interests, values and ideology in the scientific methods and approaches to research matter to the justification of theories. This is because Keller thinks that theories are chosen as 'best' based in part on how 'consonant [the theory is] with one's implicit ideological and emotional expectations'.1 Furthermore, she notes that theories that are not consonant with various ideologies or emotional expectations will not be developed enough to even be considered among competing theories. Hence, while her focus is on the approach to their subject matter taken by researchers, Keller ultimately thinks that this will shape theory justification.

Dynamic Objectivity Evelyn Fox Keller, in her books A Feeling for the Organism" and Reflections on Gender and Science, details the work of Barbara McGlintock, a

Breaking with Dogma

45

cytogeneticist whose unorthodox approach to science is alleged to have made her successful where others failed. But Keller does more than just describe McClintock's methods; she outlines for us a conception of objectivity in science that is based on (what Keller considers) intimacy, open-mindedness and love.

Object Relations Theory Keller's conception of objectivity is based on object relations theory, a theory developed by psychologists3 and later adapted for feminist purposes by Nancy Ghodorow,4 Keller and Jane Flax.5 In general object relations is a set of theories that postulate that relationships, beginning with the mother-infant dyad, are crucial for forming a sense of personal identity and gender. For the feminist object relations theorist, childhood relationships shape the child's personal identity and gender, including his or her sense of self. And, in most traditional models of parenting, mothers (or other women) are the primary care-givers for children, while fathers (or other men) play a less prominent role in rearing, feeding and providing general care for children. Based on this model of parenting, then, feminist object relations theorists hypothesize about how this parenting structure contributes to the sense of personal identity and gender that girls and boys develop. According to Nancy Chodorow, whose work forms much of the basis for Keller's views, infants come to appreciate the concepts of 'self and 'other' through their relationships with mother and father. Chodorow claims that an infant develops his or her sense of selfprimarily in relation to his/her mother, though the (allegedly distant) father influences this development as well. This occurs in part because the infant is mentally and physically dependent on his/her mother, and the infant comes to define him/herself as a person mainly through this (physically and emotionally) close relationship. But as the infant grows, he/she soon recognizes that he/she is separate from mother, though almost fully dependent on her. For both boys and girls, the relationship between the child and mother is fraught with anxiety as the child begins to recognize that he or she is separate from the mother.8 However, this recognition of

46

Objectivity in the Feminist Philosophy of Science

'self is also pleasurable, so the child is confronted with the somewhat conflicting impulses to be both connected to mother but also separate from her. 9 There is asymmetry in the mother-child relationship, because boys do not have the same comfort level with their mothers as do girls. Chodorow maintains that a girl can construct a sense of self by in effect saying to herself, 'I'm like Mom', and her gender identity is formed in part by identification with similarities to her mother. On this view, because a girl can identify so closely with her mother in forming her sense of self, a girl's development and recognition of her own separateness is formed on the basis of a close connection with her mother. ] As Chodorow explains, 'From very early on, then, because they are parented by a person of the same gender . . . girls come to experience themselves as less differentiated than boys, as more continuous with and related to the external object-world.'11 But for boys, Chodorow tells a different story. A boy looks at his mother and realizes, 'I'm not like Mom', and from there develops a sense of self that is the negation of features that characterize his mother. Caring, nurturing and attentive behaviour are certain behaviours boys come to associate with 'mother', and, in forming their sense of self, boys reject these traits and define themselves as being separate, disconnected, not as concerned with caring and nurturing. Chodorow claims that this results in boys defining 'themselves as more separate and distinct, with a greater sense of rigid ego boundaries and differentiation.'12'13 Keller suggests that what most of us have in common is that it was our mothers (or other women who provided us primary care) who gave us the emotional context 'out of which we forge the discrimination between self and other', and that leads to skewed perceptions of gender.14 Keller claims that our experiences of'merging' or connection will inevitably be linked to or identified with 'mother', 15 while separation will be identified with 'not-mother' or, indeed, 'father'. 16 As Keller explains, 'It is the father who comes to stand for individuation and differentiation - for objective reality itself; who indeed can represent the "real" world by virtue of being in it'. 17 For Chodorow and Keller, then, the basic sense of what it is to be 'like mother' (or 'feminine') becomes marked by connection to the

Breaking with Dogma

47

world, whereas what it is to be 'like father' (or 'masculine') is marked by separation from the world.18 That is, one of the main results they take to be of the psychological relationship between children and their mothers and fathers is that women feel intuitively connected to others, while men assert independence and become anxious about intimacy if it threatens their independence.l9 Of course, this is all theory that demands closer scrutiny, but for now let's assume that this assessment of how boys and girls come to associate various traits - connectedness or separateness, dependence or independence, etc. - is basically sound and move on to examine Keller's treatment of autonomy.

Autonomy and Objectivity The development of self is often understood by psychologists as the precursor to the development of autonomy, so Keller furthers her discussion by analysing autonomy and, eventually, linking it to objectivity. However, to follow her discussion at all, it is necessary to define some terms central to Keller's discussion, and to differentiate between what she deems 'static' and 'dynamic' forms of autonomy and objectivity. For Keller, 'autonomy' is defined as 'the term to refer to the psychological sense of being able to act under one's own volition instead of under external control'. Keller points out that this does not mean that one's actions aren't influenced by others, or that one has no need of others, nor does the acquisition of autonomy result in having a radical independence from others. Keller thinks that an improper definition or understanding of autonomy results from an insistence on the complete separation and independence from others as a necessary condition of true autonomy; this Keller calls 'static autonomy'. By contrast, Keller describes as dynamic the kind of autonomy that results from understanding that one can have a sense of being able to act under one's own volition without being completely separated from and independent of others. This version, what she calls 'dynamic autonomy', is for Keller, the more appropriate understanding of autonomy. For Keller, one can (and should) be autonomous even though one might consider others in one's decision-making

48

Objectivity in the Feminist Philosophy ofScience

process; that is, one can have a sense of being able to act under one's own volition without totally disregarding others, or without pretending that there are no others to consider. Keller claims that objectivity, like autonomy, need not be rooted in one's separation from or dominance over the world. To be objective, on Keller's view, means that one recognizes that the world is independent of one's desires about the world, and she explicitly defines objectivity as 'the pursuit of a maximally authentic 21, and hence maximally reliable, understanding of the world around oneself'.22 How one operates in science distinguishes between 'static objectivity' and 'dynamic objectivity'.23 'Static objectivity' is the term Keller gives to a pursuit of understanding the world that is predicated on the idea that the world must be conquered or dominated in order to be understood, and that this domination also requires distance or separateness from the object of study. 'Dynamic objectivity' is the label Keller gives to a method for understanding the world that is predicated on the idea that one can make use of connectivity to the object of study, as well as of subjective, personal experiences in order to enrich one's knowledge of the natural, physical world. 4 On this view, the scientist who operates under a conception of objectivity that is static attempts to sever him or herself from the world in order to fully understand it, rather than immerse him or herself in the world.25 To make the connection to object relations theory explicit, he or she attempts to emulate the 'father', who represented objective reality, by mimicking the father's perceived separateness and independence from the child. Here, the connection between objectivity and autonomy is merely this: those researchers who have developed static senses of autonomy are likely to be statically objective, while those who have developed dynamic senses of autonomy are likely to be dynamically objective. The development of autonomy is directly linked to the development of how one perceives and conceives the concept of objectivity. Crudely put, the traditional, detached, 'view from nowhere' notion of objectivity is linked to static autonomy. On this view, individuals who have anxiety about their own independence, and who therefore associate autonomy with separation from others, will be likely to be statically

Breaking with Dogma

49

objective. We already know that Keller views static autonomy as a confusion of separateness with autonomy. It should not be surprising, then, that in advocating the dynamic version of autonomy, Keller advocates the dynamic version of objectivity. A researcher who is dynamically objective pursues knowledge with a recognition of both the independence of the world around us - that it exists apart from what we say about it - and the fact that our knowledge about the world requires us to get involved with that world. Keller claims that this is a form of empathy, whereby in its usual context we get to know another person better by imagining what it would be like to be that person. As Keller explains empathy, we 'draw explicitly on the commonality of feelings and experiences in order to enrich one's understanding of another in his or her own right'.26 Here, Keller is endorsing an approach to objectivity that centres not so much on independence of the world from us, but on what happens when one tries to understand the world by connecting with that world. I take it that her analogy to empathy is intended to make this point: when we seek to understand other humans, we must 'put ourselves in their shoes' and attempt to make a connection with their circumstances. Likewise, when we seek to understand the world, we shouldn't rely on our independence or separateness from the world, but on our similarities and connections to it. How this is supposed to work becomes clearer in the context of Keller's description of efforts made by Barbara McGlintock to prove her theory of genetic transposition, and it is really by example that we can make sense of Keller's metaphorical way of speaking. Before turning to the real-life example of dynamic objectivity provided by the story of Barbara McGlintock, note that Keller's reliance on object relations theory as an explanation for the development of various personality traits deserves more discussion than what is presented here. In addition, (arguably) Keller's views of child-rearing may be somewhat anachronistic given recent changes in parenting structures, with many more men participating in parenting (either as single parents or simply as more involved fathers) than what was common over twenty years ago when Keller first published her papers on this topic. The study of these male-involved parenting

50

Objectivity in the Feminist Philosophy ofScience

structures would be needed to round out Keller's discussion of the development of autonomy and objectivity. What I want to point out here, regardless of what can be said for or against Keller's psychological theory, is that the problem Keller sees with current scientific practice is that it endorses static objectivity, not the dynamic approach that Keller favours. To Keller, it appears that much more progress might be made in science if static objectivity were replaced with dynamic objectivity. Keller is here endorsing a specific approach to science - the method of dynamic objectivity - that she believes will, if adopted by individual scientists, yield better results than that guided by static objectivity. Keller's supposition is that we could find many cases in science where adherence to or preference for static objectivity has prevented scientists from fully understanding the natural world. Moreover. Keller predicts that dynamic objectivity would help scientists access the answers to our scientific (and epistemic) mysteries, because she thinks that static objectivity prevents scientists from fully knowing their objects of study.27 Furthermore, while Keller is not committed to the view that men do not or cannot use this type of objectivity, she does suggest that women are more likely to use it. 2 How the dynamic version of objectivity is supposed to work in science is illustrated in the work of Barbara McGlintock.

Understanding Dynamic Objectivity: The McGlintock Case Keller's clearest example of what she considers dynamic objectivity at work comes from her book A Feeling for the Organism, a biographical account of the geneticist Barbara McClintock. Keller describes McGlintock, born in 1902, as a renegade scientist, not only because she was a woman working in an almost all-male field, but also because she was a 'philosophical and methodological deviant'. 29 Though she was always a highly regarded scientist, McGlintock's greatest contribution to genetics was her discovery that genetic elements can coordinate their movements, something called genetic transposition. Just a few years after her research commenced, Watson and Crick discovered the structure of DNA, which provided scientists

Breaking with Dogma

51

with a model of genetic information, a model that showed genetic information flowing from DNA to RNA to protein. 30 This became the 'central dogma' regarding how genetic information flows: it flowedfrom the DNA, never to the DNA. DNA became, then, the controlling factor or what has sometimes been termed the 'master-molecule' from which all information was controlled. Keller claims that this view of genetic organization is essentially a hierarchical organization, akin to the organizational charts of major corporations.31 As McClintock saw it, the problem with this view was that it oversimplified the complex processes involved in genetic organization and mutation. McClintock's theory of genetic transposition showed that the behaviour of genes is far more complicated than what was suggested by what was considered the central dogma. 32 McClintock studied mutations as they arose in crops of maize. She noticed that the rate of mutation was constant, and figured that something had to be controlling the rate of mutation; the mutation was not randomly happening randomly. While this conclusion does not sound terribly radical, Keller points out that at the time of these experiments - the 1940s - the idea of some kind of control factor directing genetic behaviour was unheard of.34 More important to this story is the fact that genes were viewed as stable and not capable of moving around a chromosome string, turning on and off at different times during a cell's development. Genetics experts had also assumed that a mutated gene could not reproduce another mutation, but McClintock eventually showed that environmental conditions could, in effect, reverse some mutations and reactivate some genes.35 So, to begin her project, McClintock was starting with an idea that was viewed as heretical: that changes in the genetic heritage of the maize were being controlled by something in the genetic make-up of the corn, but that the control was not found in a central gene or master-molecule. The picture McClintock painted of genetics was fluid and changing, intricately regulated, but far from the simple explanations of stable genes favoured by her contemporaries.36 (Note that at the time of her initial research into these phenomena, she had little concrete evidence for her claims, but set out to prove them nonetheless. ')

52

Objectivity in the Feminist Philosophy ofScience

The phenomenon that had captured her attention was when the rate of mutation seemed to be reset by the plant. McClintock focused on cases where a parent cell (with one mutation rate) divided into two 'daughter' cells with two new rates. These new rates were almost exactly opposite, since one daughter cell had a higher rate of mutation than the parent, while the other daughter cell had a lower mutation rate than the parent. 3 Something, thought McClintock, had to explain and account for this, and she believed that genetic transposition - where a chromosomal element is released from one position and inserted into a new one - could explain the mutations of the maize. The first part of transposition she called dissociation, where the chromosome breaks or is released from the chromosomal element and settles in another location; this gene she called the dissociator.39 McClintock observed that this occurred systematically, and figured that something she called an activator must be responsible. But evidence proved the organisms to be more complex than this, for it appeared to McClintock that dissociation occurred only when the activator is present, but that there was also something about the activator itself that played a role in the timing of its own occurrence.40 Data collected showed McClintock that dissociation (which caused mutation) could not occur if the activator gene was not present, so in one sense the activator controls the dissociator. But the activator itself seemed to change, so McClintock had to explain what caused this sort of change. The answer was that the 'time and occurrence of changes in [the activator] are controlled by [the activator] itself5.41 She determined that internal and external environmental factors had an effect on the activators, which means that changes in the activators, which themselves are dependent on their environment, had an effect on the cellular dissociation to which they gave rise.42 As Keller explains, 'the dependency of changes in the state or location of [activators] on the state of [activators] in a given cell constitutes an explanation of the great variety of patterns of mutability observed'.43 This theory stood in opposition to the master-molecule models proposed by contemporary biologists, who viewed the controller or activators as themselves stable and unchanging.

Breaking with Dogma

53

Though McGlintock tried to publish her results so as to remove any doubt as to the existence of transposition, she failed miserably. Several attempts to explain her view to colleagues resulted in her being labelled 'mad'; her views were not well received when presented in both 1951 and 1956.44 Though a handful of colleagues lent their support, McClintock faced years of isolation and even ridicule because of her insistence that transposition could account for various observed patterns of mutations in cells. McGlintock was mystified by the reluctance of the scientific community to embrace her ideas; indeed, she did not understand why they were viewed as heretical. After all, biologists were well familiar with the ability of viral DNA to be inserted into and released from bacterial DNA, and what was so different about the release and insertion of resident DNA that made her view so unpalatable to her colleagues? McClintock attributes the reluctance of the scientific community to accept transposition to what she called 'tacit assumptions', or a commitment to looking at things only as one has been trained, and not with a 'fresh mind'. She also believed that contemporary research lacked humility, which led to overconfidence about certain assumptions. These tacit assumptions, according to McGlintock, keep one mired in a dogmatic approach to all new observations, even those that do not fit well with the expectations of the accepted model. More troubling to McClintock was that scientists weren't even aware of their own unreasonable commitments to certain entrenched ways of thinking about data, and as she claimed, 'They didn't know they were bound to a model, and you couldn't show them . . . even if you made an effort.'45 McClintock's diagnosis of what was wrong with her colleagues' approach was that they had no 'feel for what these cells had to undergo in development', and she recommended letting the material tell its own story, which, she claimed, usually won't fit into a central dogma.46 It is this feeling for the organism - the intent listening to what the organism is saying - that is a hallmark of the style attributed to McClintock. But before we dissect this approach, an epilogue to her research is necessary.

54

Objectivity in the Feminist Philosophy ofScience

Eventually, the theory of genetic transposition was proved correct, but it was not widely accepted until the late 1970s. Keller points out that even in the face of such acceptance, McClintock's evidence for the consequences of transposition is only understood by a few, as are her arguments for 'innate mechanisms for genetic responses to stress'.47 Regardless, McClintock's theory of transposition was vindicated, and she was awarded several prestigious prizes in the late 1970s and early 1980s, eventually winning the Nobel Prize for Medicine and Physiology in 1983. It is McClintock's approach to the phenomena she studied that proved crucial to understanding Keller's reasons for choosing McGlintock's work as an exemplar for dynamic objectivity at work. Keller points out that McClintock claimed to have had a certain intimacy with each organism she studied. She also let the material tell her what was going on, and insisted that she didn't merely try to impose her own desired ends onto the material, a mistake she found prevalent among many of her colleagues. As McClintock herself explains, 'I feel that much of the work is done because one wants to impose an answer on i t . . . If you'd only just let the material tell you'. 48 This metaphorical way of speaking is fairly straightforward in meaning: McClintock thought that too often scientists impose some preconceived idea what she called tacit assumptions - about the data onto the data itself, which forces them to ignore data that do not fit well with those tacit assumptions; that is, they have to ignore anomalous data. She thought that scientists should give up some of their tacit assumptions and instead pay attention to the anomalies: 'So if the material tells you "It may be this", allow that. Don't turn it aside and call it an exception, an aberration, a contaminant... That's what's happened all the way along the line with so many good clues'.49 McClintock also emphasized her own ability to really know the organisms she studied on an intimate level, claiming that the fact that she observed the maize from seedling through adulthood gave her a full insight into the life of that organism. Of the plants, McClintock said, '[I] know every plant in the field. I know them intimately, and I find it a great pleasure to know them'. 50 While this may seem like just a fanciful or romantic way of speaking, if we take McClintock seriously we cannot ignore the importance of what she is trying to say.

Breaking with Dogma

55

McClintock was emphasizing the need for a deep emotional investment in the subject one studies, which she believed resulted in not a cold, clinical approach to understanding phenomena, but a connected approach that McClintock believed is not all that conventional. Keller likens McClintock's approach to that of Einstein, who said, 'only intuition, resting on sympathetic understanding, can lead to [these laws];... the daily effort comes from no deliberate intention or program, but straight from the heart'. 51 In concurrence with Keller's dynamic objectivity, McClintock admits that her strategy was to identify with her objects of study (maize), rather than to dominate them or view them as outside herself: I found that the more I worked with them, the bigger and bigger [the chromosomes] got, and when I was really working with them I wasn't outside, I was down there. I was part of the system. I was right down there with them, and everything got big As you look at these things, they become part of you. And you forget yourself.5 For Keller, this being 'down there' and 'part of the system' that McClintock describes is part and parcel of being fully connected to the object of study, and not distanced from it. Keller suggests that the goal of static objectivity - to stand apart from the object of study as an uninvolved observer or to dominate it in order to understand it - was not met by McClintock's approach. Rather, the goal of dynamic objectivity, which is to connect to the object of study and get to know what it is thinking or feeling in order to understand it, was being met. This, Keller, claims, is what made McClintock successful where others had failed. Indeed, it is precisely this to which McClintock attributes her own success. The moral of this story, according to Keller, is not simply that McClintock's intuition, open-mindedness, connection and relatedness to her objects of study contributed to her success as a scientist, though this is part of Keller's point, especially as it provides an exemplar of dynamic objectivity. The additional moral to the story, as Keller sees it, is that whatever McClintock was, she was not a man. And, claims Keller, because she was not a man, she had different

56

Objectivity in the Feminist Philosophy of Science

commitments than her male counterparts. On Keller's view, this means that McGlintock simply did not follow the traditional pattern of other scientists, and went about her work in the non-traditional, allegedly uncommon, dynamic approach to being objective. The commitment to dynamic objectivity is presumably what led McClintock to succeed where others had failed, at least by Keller's rendition of events. Furthermore, Keller (rather boldly) claims that most scientists conceive of nature as something to be dominated and controlled, and that most men think being masculine means being detached from others.53 She further claims that whatever diversity there is among the views of individual male scientists in terms of their attitudes about science and masculinity, the allegedly prevailing metaphor of a 'marriage' between mind and nature to form science 'necessarily does not look the same to them as it does to women'.54 That is, no matter how comfortable or uncomfortable a male scientist is with being connected to or detached from the world, he will always view the marriage metaphor differently - presumably, more benevolently - than will women. It is women who will presumably take issue with the idea that as the metaphorical 'husband', the scientist must 'beat the answers out of nature, the metaphorical wife. For Keller, this is the crucial point: Of course, not all scientists have embraced the conception of science as 'putting nature on the rack and torturing the answers out of her'. Nor have all men embraced a conception of masculinity that demands cool detachment and domination. But most have. And however variable the attitudes of individual male scientists toward science and toward masculinity, the metaphor of a marriage between mind and nature necessarily does not look the same to them as it does to women. And this is

the point.55 There is a lot going on in Keller's proposed moral to the McCiintock story. First, there is Keller's emphasis on the fact that women practising science are practising it in a world of men. She assumes they will be more likely than these men to have a commitment to dynamic objectivity, and will more readily recognize (and question) masculine theoretical commitments, such as domination

Breaking with Dogma

57

or dogmatic approaches to scientific quagmires. Second, there is the assertion that most male scientists view nature as something to be conquered, something to dominate, a view related to the static versions of objectivity and autonomy that Keller claims are too narrow and unproductive to procure greater scientific success than what we have already enjoyed. Keller's third and final point regarding the moral of the McGlintock story has to do with how science would be affected if more women joined its ranks. Quite simply, Keller sees women's presence as the only force that would undermine the 'commitment of scientists to the masculinity of their profession'.56 This means that embracing dynamic objectivity would become more prevalent. As Keller states, the method of'[pjaying attention to [nature's responses] "listening to the material" - may help us to reconstruct our understanding of science in terms born out of the diverse spectrum of human experience rather than out of the narrow spectrum that our culture has labeled masculine'. 57' 58 Keller's approach to showing that women are more likely to be dynamically objective than men relies primarily on accounts similar to the McGlintock story and the assumption that women will be less likely to view nature as an object to be dominated. That is, they would be less likely to 'share masculine pleasure in mastering a nature cast in the image of woman as passive, inert and blind'.59 It is fair to note that, in certain places, Keller rejects the idea that female scientists would be more likely to embrace dynamic objectivity than their male counterparts. This is mostly because of the way scientists are socialized, which allegedly serves to undermine some of the developed femininity in women. That is, even though object relations theory offers one explanation for how women come to be dynamically objective, Keller thinks that scientific education can undermine this. As Keller she explains: To the extent that science is defined by its past and present practitioners, anyone who aspires to membership in that community must conform to its existing code . . . for this reason, it is unreasonable to expect a sharp differentiation between women scientists [and male scientists].60

58

Objectivity in the Feminist Philosophy of Science

Keller suggests that in order to transform science, we would need to undermine the 'the commitment of scientists to the masculinity of their profession' [and their masculine, static methods,] that which 'would be an inevitable concomitant of the participation of large numbers of women'.61 She also thinks that men who operate well under the auspices of dynamic objectivity could also help transform science, and it seems there is a significant group of men who adhere to the dynamic approach. 62 Stephen Jay Gould, a late-twentieth-century palaeontologist, claimed that his discipline - evolutionary and taxonomic biology regularly uses the procedures and reasoning processes used by McClintock. Gould notes that McClintock worked by 'a kind of global, intuitive insight', and not the 'style of logical and sequential thinking often taken as a canonical mode of reasoning in science'.63 In addition, Gould claims that the dynamic approach is common to the field of evolutionary and taxonomic biology, though not to McClintock's field of molecular biology: We work directly with complex organisms and their interaction with each other and their physical environment in growth and adult life. We accept the individuality of each organism as fundamentally irreducible, as the definition of biology's uniqueness and complexity... [McGlintock] is a true taxonomic biologist, a naturalist not a mystic, working in a field unfamiliar with (and often alienated from) this approach.64 Gould's comments were intended to illuminate the extent to which men can and do employ dynamic objectivity, and to cast some doubt on the extent to which the dynamic approach is unique to women. But Keller never claims that only women can use dynamic objectivity. Rather, she thinks women will be more comfortable with the dynamic approach, and therefore more likely than men to employ it. In any case, Keller's main concern is with undermining what she views as the commitment of science to domination and control, which she thinks can be done by infusing science with individuals who seek to understand science through the dynamic approach to objectivity.

Breaking with Dogma

59

Warnings about Domination Perhaps the most salient feature of Keller's work is her attention to issues oi domination as they relate to how researchers think about their objects of study. This aspect of her work fits nicely with Catherine MacKinnon's attention to domination, and it forms a common theme among many feminist philosophers of science, especially in their discussions about objectivity. The idea is that domination, considered a masculine concept, plays a significant though sometimes hidden role in our scientific practice. For example, Keller emphasizes the role of pacemaker concepts in theories found in physics and molecular biology. Crudely put, the pacemaker or master-molecule concept is the idea that one particular thing - a gene, cell or other singular, identifiable object - is in charge of directing a process or change in a physical system. This one particular thing controls or dominates the fate of a process or system, by itself having full control over necessary changes in that system or process. Keller's own research focused on cellular mould aggregation, in particular on what triggers the aggregation. Keller notes that her contemporaries weren't asking quite this question, since they had already assumed that a pacemaker or master-molecule was responsible for triggering the aggregation, even though this assumption was not based on evidence, experimentation or other data. 65 In spite of having no evidence for or against the existence of such pacemakers, researchers repeatedly referenced them as part of larger theories about aggregation, and research that did not posit pacemakers was suppressed or at least ignored.66 Later research proved that cells that are in a greater state of starvation are likely to become aggregation centres, and these cells do not need to be pacemakers (though Keller notes they might continue to be regarded as such).67 But the force of the pacemaker concept was intriguing to Keller, and it provided her with a rather simple example of a dogmatic insistence on a process that posits a 'single central governor'. 68 Keller views a commitment to pacemaker concepts as indicative of a preference for theories that express the domination of one thing or process over another thing or process.

60

Objectivity in the Feminist Philosophy ofScience

Furthermore, Keller's work emphasizes the extent to which science may (unwittingly) select for individuals who are more comfortable with adversarial or domination/subordination relationships than those who are not. As Keller explains, 'I suggest that a science that promises power and the exercise of dominion over nature selects for those individuals for whom power and control are central concerns'.69 (Women, too, can fall into this group.) On this view, a warning given is that a science that promises control of and dominion over nature - allegedly the rhetoric of the received view — will attract individuals with a certain psychological profile. That profile contains a preference for theories, approaches and descriptions for and about nature that reflect concepts like domination, control and aggression. The predicted result is that science will have an ideological bent toward domination and control, which can manifest in a variety of ways, from the interest in how best to kill each other, to a preference for pacemaker-type explanations, to the exclusion of seemingly heretical views like those of McGlintock. In effect, science can become contaminated by domination.

Caring Labour and Science To further illustrate how far this point can be taken, consider the view of Hilary Rose as found in her article, 'Hand, Brain and Heart: A Feminist Epistemology for the Natural Sciences', where she outlines a plan to 'transform science'.71 What is overlooked in science, according to Rose, is reproduction and the 'caring labour' traditionally done by women.72 Rose begins by asserting that science needs to be changed, claiming that the 'trouble with science and technology from a feminist perspective is that they are integral not only to a system of capitalist domination but also to one of patriarchal domination'. 73 Rose proposes that a 'feminist knowledge of the natural world [would offer] an emancipatory rather than an exterminatory science'.74 Here, Rose gives her motivation for proposing a feminist science, which is to rid science of its patriarchal domination and to emancipate women. Much of Rose's criticism of current science is that it is focused on domination, such as in our warfare development or

Breaking with Dogma

61

technological research that has resulted in the destruction of nature with pesticides and genetic tampering. One might suppose that Rose would prefer that science be focused on what she would take to be more 'caring' (viz., feminine or feminist) goals, perhaps projects such as ending world hunger, curing diseases of third-world countries, or destroying all nuclear weapons. These pursuits are exemplary of a 'caring' aspect to one's research, and do not promote the domination of one group over another, which Rose associates with goals that are contrary to feminism. Regardless of how one imports Rose's critique into our scientific practice, she clearly has in mind that issues of domination permeate our scientific landscape, at least as science has been advertised. It is reasonable to see Keller's work, as well as Rose's critiques of science, as warnings about the role of domination in our ideology and rhetoric of science, as well as the dangers involved in actually practising science with a preference for domination. Keller's work, as it relates to McGlintock, also gives us an example of how ideological views become a part of actual scientific practice: both McGlintock and the community that initially rejected her view carried their ideological views into the laboratory.

Keller's Contributions Before summarizing what I believe to be the most beneficial and crucial elements of Keller's work as it relates to the project of enriching objectivity, the open questions left by her view should be addressed. First, Keller does not give us an adequate cautionary note about how dynamic objectivity can run amuck. That is, the danger with getting so involved with one's object of study is that one might lose sight of what is a feature of the object and what is a feature that one desires to be true. 'Loving' one's object of study may result in too much involvement on the part of the researcher, which is probably acceptable only if the involvement has a benign effect on the very process under study - and determining whether the effect is benign is a question for investigation. Keller fails to give us a clear mechanism for dealing

62

Objectivity in the Feminist Philosophy ofScience

with the threats to scientific objectivity that have been bothering feminists all along, and threats we should all be nervous about, such as the negative role of bias, interests, values and preference that we might find embedded in our research and theories. How do we know our scientific theories aren't merely reflections of our biases, desires, religious beliefs, and the like? Keller has not drawn for us an adequate picture for how dynamic objectivity deals with this problem better than its alternative. Of course, one promissory note I've already given is that Keller's concept of dynamic objectivity will become part of the network of ideas about objectivity that will help rather than hinder our pursuit of an enriched concept of objectivity. Hence, Keller needn't be held to the unreasonable standard of having to solve every problem faced by scientists imperfectly pursuing objective knowledge. In addition, the reader should note that in Chapter 5 I will outline a view of intersubjective criticism that makes possible the simultaneous practice of something like dynamic objectivity among individual scientists but additionally makes possible the revelation and assessment of ideological views that underlie various scientific programmes and theories. Second, although women still comprise the majority of primary caretakers for children (either in the form of biological mothers or childcare professionals), Keller probably has to refine her use of object relations theory as an explanation for what she takes to be the differences between masculine and feminine behaviour, in light of the changes that have occurred in the way people parent their children since the original publication of Reflections on Gender and Science in 1985. Though they are not the majority, co-parenting households may well provide information that is crucial to further understanding the psychological development of children. Third, Keller fails to address the issue of how she knows the dynamic approach to objectivity will be more reliable than the static approach. She does give anecdotal evidence to show that dynamic objectivity can have success, and as well argues that the static approach to objectivity prevents real or deep knowledge of one's object of study. However, I suppose one could demand that she prove - by way of investigation — that the results ofdynamic objectivity are more reliable or complete than those of alternate approaches to objectivity. This is a

Breaking with Dogma

63

problem she shares with any feminist claim that one specific particular scientific method is likely to be more successful than any other.75 I suspect the real problem here is not that these claims are unproven, but that they are beside the main point: feminists should not merely seek to tell us which precise approach to data to use when solving scientific problems, but rather which philosophical view of science and objectivity will be most effective in dealing both with our desire to produce true or correct scientific theories and our (feminist) desire to eliminate any masculine bias in science. In addition, a more comprehensive enrichment of objectivity will have to be able to reveal and assess not just masculine assumptions in science, but broader personal and cultural influences as well. I think portions of Keller's view help with just this task, and that her concept of dynamic objectivity should be added to our network of ideas that can be used to improve upon our conception of scientific objectivity. Keller's discussions regarding what kind of objectivity is best for science conclude with the view that dynamic objectivity can lead us to a deeper understanding of our objects of study. This is allegedly because we become engaged with or connected to our objects of study rather than separate from and dominant over them. How does this fit with a larger philosophical view of science and objectivity that seeks to produce true or correct scientific theories and our (feminist) desire to eliminate any masculine bias in science? For one thing, Keller's work emphasizes the extent to which certain theoretical interpretations and the selection of theories as good or correct in science are influenced by ideologies. The McGlintock case presents one example of how a broad philosophical view can be expressed in a specific scientific project. An awareness of the philosophical or ideological views that might be playing a role in our scientific practice - especially in our justification of certain theories and descriptions of nature - should at least cause us to do some self-reflection, which is precisely what Keller (and others) recommend: Rather than abandon the quintessentially human effort to understand the world in rational terms, we need to refine that effort. To do this, we need to add to the familiar methods of rational and

64

Objectivity in the Feminist Philosophy ofScience

empirical inquiry the additional process of critical self-reflection... attending to the features of the scientific project that belie its universality.76 Most of Chapter 4 of this paper book is devoted to examining the suggestion that if researchers reflect on what they are doing in science - and do so in a way sensitive to the role ideology and philosophy play in science - then they are bound to improve upon the extent to which science is objective. This self-reflection and an examination of our interests and values becomes necessary once we are convinced that there is something we cannot discover without it, namely the very ideological views that get expressed, unwittingly, perhaps, in our specific scientific programmes. In addition, Keller's worries about dogma, and her insistence that alternatives to dogmatic views be properly treated means that scientific objectivity will have to be defined socially, not just on an individual level, and the social nature of science will be addressed in Chapter 5. Indeed, had the practice of science been confined to isolated individuals merely working in lonely, vacuous arenas alone, McClintock would never have been vindicated. The social nature of science allows that many different views exist in the community, and, though dominant views may overshadow others, those alternate views do exist. In fact, the history of science shows that challenges to dogma frequently result in scientific progress.77 Finally, Keller's preference for dynamic objectivity raises questions about whether there are any rules for individual epistemic or scientific practice other than going with the flow of your own approach. Her views have been influential in raising the question of whether individual scientists should be adhering to certain approaches - such as being connected to their objects of study - other than the ones she thinks are typically emphasized in scientific training. The view endorsing dynamic objectivity places requirements on individual scientists by suggesting that dynamic objectivity, as well as (individual) self-reflection, increases the objectivity of our scientific practice and theories. In the next chapter, I'll examine an account of the role of critical self-reflection in securing or increasing objectivity in science.

Chapter 4

Critical Self-Reflection: Achieving Strong Objectivity

So far, the views of objectivity here discussed have hinted at the idea that one thing necessary for scientists who desire objective results is that they engage in critical self-reflection. What does this mean? In this chapter, Fll discuss just what this amounts to, but first let me emphasize that critical self-reflection is not a part of mainstream scientific pedagogy. Very few undergraduate courses in the sciences require students to be at all aware of the philosophy of science, and scant few graduate programmes do this, either. The result is a kind of myopia on the part of practising scientists: they know how to do their science, but they know little of the structure, philosophy and history of it. This is not to say that some scientists are not aware of, for example, the work of Kuhn, Quine, or Feyerabend. Rather, it is to point out that narrow focus on only the scientific projects at hand gives one a very different vision and mind-set than does a broader understanding of the practice of science. As a former chemistry major (I eventually minored in it), I read with fascination Thomas Kuhn's work. Having taken three calculus courses, two physics courses, two biology courses and seven chemistry courses, it seemed remarkable to me that throughout my three years of education to prepare me to be a scientist had no one ever bothered to teach me anything about the history of science, and the influence of culture and society on that history. No one mentioned that the worshipped 'method* didn't really work that way in the world of real science (though failed lab experiments often made us suspect this). No one said a word about the fact that science in the real world was a lot messier,

66

Objectivity in the Feminist Philosophy of Science

more complex and more confusing than what we were being taught at our lab benches. Reading Kuhn got me thinking that science was far more interesting from a philosophical perspective than it was from a practical one, hence the change of major at the very last possible moment. But it also got me thinking that scientists would benefit greatly from having a bit of philosophy mixed into their education. To tell my colleagues in the chemistry department that 'no theory can ever really be confirmed beyond a shadow of a doubt' was sure to raise their ire or curiosity, but yet all they really would have needed in order to understand why this is true was a brief lesson on the problem of induction. . . . Indeed, in teaching philosophy of science courses, it is the science majors who find the material most interesting and most informative regarding how to become a better scientist. I had one senior physics student tell me that he would never again look at the process of scientific inquiry in quite the same way, and that he would try to 'guard against5 assuming that all accepted (dogmatic) views were without flaw. He even wondered aloud in class whether he had ever stuck to an idea not because of evidence but because 'that's the way [I] wanted it to turn out'. But this kind of critical self-reflection, coupled with awareness that the scientific method is imperfect in its approach to ensuring the objectivity of its results, is exactly what can increase the extent to which our theories and descriptions of the social and natural world are more, not less, objective. This, however, requires that scientists actively participate in policing themselves. I think a view that best argues why this is so comes from the work of Sandra Harding, who gives us many warnings about the shortcomings of objectivity as it plays a role in the received view of science, and she proposes some solutions to these problems. In her papers 'Strong Objectivity: A Response to the New Objectivity Question5 and 'Rethinking Standpoint Epistemology: What is "Strong Objectivity"?',2 Harding argues that the traditional use of objectivity is far too weak to achieve the maximally objective research that is the desired outcome of scientific endeavours, where we hope that the views we accept are less false or less distorted than those we discard.

Critical Self-Reflection: Achieving Strong Objectivity W e a k Objectivity Harding depicts objectivity as characterized by the received view of science as a method for achieving the goals of what she calls 'objectivism', where objectivism is understood to be an endorsement of the conception of objectivity as neutrality with regard to social and political preferences or biases.3 She calls this kind of objectivity 'weak objectivity5, and thinks that this is what is mandated by the received view of science. So, based on objectivism, when social and political views seep into science, it is because scientists are not remaining neutral with regard to social and political values; they just weren't doing a good job of following the scientific method.4 According to Harding, when political forces from outside science attempt to use science to further specific interests, weak objectivity works fairly well, though imperfectly.5 She thinks of this method of objectivity as weak because it is only able to deal with the influence of cultural or personal interests or values (or, as she sometimes calls them, assumptions) that are imposed on science from outside the scientific community. The story of Lysenko provides a good case for putting Harding's views about weak objectivity into context.

The Lysenko Affair In the 1930s, the Soviet politician biologist T.D. Lysenko was a proponent of the idea that Mendelian genetics (which held that many genetic traits of offspring are determined by and inherited from the genetic traits of their parents) posed a threat to the Soviet people. He argued in favour of Lamarckism, or the view that organisms, in particular agricultural ones, could be transformed by deliberate environmental manipulation and grafting. On this view, heredity is purely a physiological process that is the result of an organism's interaction with its environment.6 Perhaps the most contentious claim made by those in support of Lamarckism was that gene theory was purely metaphysical, and genes themselves only theoretical or mystical. The need of the Soviets to produce more and better wheat, as well as the land's general unsuitability for growing winter or spring wheat,

67

68

Objectivity in the Feminist Philosophy ofScience

led to the practical implementation of Lamarckism in Soviet agriculture in the 1930s through the 1960s.8 A process of chilling the seeds of winter wheat and then planting them in the spring to avoid the cold, hard freeze of winter, as well as the drought of late summer, is known as vernalization. The idea was that the breed or type of wheat was not as important as the conditions under which it was grown; change in the conditions could change the wheat itself. On the basis of a small experiment run by Lysenko's father, who soaked forty-eight kilos of winter wheat, grew it beside spring wheat and claimed to have reaped a better harvest from the vernalized winter wheat, Lysenko's ideas were promoted and accepted by the Soviet government.9 Though there was never a scientific basis for the far-reaching claim that Lysenko and his supporters made - and, in fact, they completely dismissed genetics as a factor in the heredity of phenotypes - many Soviets embraced these ideas in the hopes that they could revitalize the Soviet agricultural system. Lysenko's process of vernalization was eventually shown to be a failure, but not before Lysenko had been given much attention and power by the Soviet governments before his theory's ultimate demise.10 The method of weak objectivity seems to handle the influence of Lysenko's ideology on what he and his supporters considered science. Consider this interpretation of the story: These researchers violated the norms of objectivism, because they did not remain neutral with regard to their own social and political beliefs, and in fact had been influenced by their Marxist political views, especially views regarding the relationship and interaction between objects and their surroundings.11 One way to view the end of this story is to think that researchers within the scientific community employed the method of weak objectivity to disprove the claims of Lysenko, and indeed, to illuminate the facts about Mendelian genetics. Simply put, Lysenko's followers didn't follow the mandates of objectivism well enough.

Strong Objectivity Objectivism and the method of weak objectivity can be somewhat useful in uncovering the inappropriate role of ideology in science,

Critical Self-Reflection: Achieving Strong Objectivity especially in cases like the Lysenko affair. But Harding suggests that we have become overly (and wrongly) confident about our ability to be neutral with regard to social and political values, as well as about how well objectivism serves us in the first place. There is a different threat to science that results in ideology being a driving force behind a scientific theory, and this threat comes from within the scientific community. This happens when widely held and shared cultural beliefs shape the whole of normal science. Harding argues that the procedures of objectivism, and the method of weak objectivity, are too weak to deal with this problem, which can best be highlighted by using the following example.

Reproductive Models and 'Sperm Sagas9 Consider the model of conception that was standard science in the Western world until around 1980.12 As early as 1795, the role of the egg in conception was seen as merely passive, while the sperm were seen as being the active, aggressive participants in conception.13 As one research group notes, in textbook descriptions of conception, and in the formal model of conception used by biologists prior to 1980, the egg was always depicted as passively waiting or 'slumbering' until awakened by the active sperm that itself triggers the beginnings of human life. The romanticized, storybook language of the textbooks is also worth noting: invariably, these stories of conception sound like 'sperm sagas', where the valiant sperm hero fights inhospitable conditions, overcomes his competition and finally wins the patiently waiting damsel.14 By continually depicting the sperm as the active, controlling player in conception, these stories completely overlooked the role of the egg in facilitating cell growth. Indeed, if the egg is merely passive and cannot facilitate conception, then failure to initiate conception would most likely be blamed on variances in sperm (perhaps they aren't valiant enough) or perhaps on a sperm's 'rejection' of the egg I perhaps the sperm don't think this particular ovum damsel is worth saving). Assuming the egg is completely passive leads to scientific questions, problems and research programmes that focus around the

69

70

Objectivity in the Feminist Philosophy of Science

assumption that the female reproductive organisms are passive and the male organisms active or aggressive. Though these stories and models may capture some of what happens in conception, the problem is that taken as they are, these stories are false (and have been corrected in contemporary accounts of conception) . For one thing, the egg is not passive, and in fact the sperm does not penetrate the egg in the way traditionally depicted in the sperm saga models. Rather, using scanning electron microscopy, it was discovered that tiny microvilli on the outside of the egg actually grasp the sperm and draw it into the cell; the sperm does not penetrate the egg on its own.15 Moreover, there are secretions produced in the female reproductive tract that facilitate conception, and enzymes produced by the sperm to assist with conception do not work unless they are in the presence of certain other female secretions.16 The entire conception process, contrary to the once-standard view, is much more of a harmonious partnership than the sperm saga stories imply. Indeed, the sperm sagas completely miss the presence of certain features of the egg and various enzymes that must be present in order for conception to commence. However, many feminist critics of science note that the sperm sagas did represent what were at the time widely shared views about the passivity of everything female and the aggressive or active natures of things male. What is relevant for Harding's view is that these stories were challenged from outside the prevailing view: the recognition that our description of conception may not be complete or correct stemmed, in part, from feminist critiques of cell and molecular biology.17 For one thing, feminists claimed that the concept of females (and female 'things') as passive did not cohere with their own experiences (i.e., they weren't passive), and for another, feminists were simply insulted by the idea that everything female should be seen as passive rather than aggressive or active. Therefore, their critiques prompted questions about the widespread cultural assumptions underlying so much of the theoretical and experimental work of reproductive biologists. Through new instrumentation, notably the electron microscope, researchers were better able to explore the physical traits of the egg and sperm, and used such instrumentation to really examine the prevailing assumptions about the egg. Their

Critical Self-Reflection: Achieving Strong Objectivity findings did not fit with the prevailing view, and this led to subsequent changes to the biological models of human conception.

The Inadequacy of Weak Objectivity It appears that the method of weak objectivity would be inadequate for bringing about the kind of change found at the end of the sperm saga case and that, in general, weak objectivity is inadequate for ensuring that science is moving towards less false theories about the social and natural world. This is because the method of weak objectivity does not give us a mechanism for uncovering interest, value and bias when they are so widespread that they become constitutive of normal science, and therefore appear invisible to those in the scientific community. The method of weak objectivity cannot systematically reveal these underlying assumptions or interests.18 The example of Sir Cyril Burt in Chapter 2 also presents a case where prevailing assumptions shared within a scientific community are not detected until it is, in a sense, too late. Burt's contemporaries already thought (or believed or thought they knew) that white males had superior intelligence and that this superiority (over people of colour and women) was, of course, genetic. To be clear - the emphasis on genetics was important here, because admitting that one's privileged position in life is mostly or all due to circumstance - wealth, nutrition, education, parental interest - doesn't quite elevate one to the status that inherent superiority does. To say that differences in intelligence among, say, Caucasians and African Americans, is largely (or all) due to environment means that things could be otherwise, and that was simply too painful an admission for Burt and his contemporaries to make. The sperm saga case exemplifies the role of interests and values (sexist ones) as they played a widespread role in science in just the way Harding has in mind here, as do studies about race and intelligence, where race is at least a complicated enough concept tofirstquestion whether it is a biologically definitive concept before using such a concept in theorizing. But like the sperm sagas, research projects into race and intelligence are made to seem reasonable (even scientific) only in light of widespread cultural assumptions about race. 19

71

72

Objectivity in the Feminist Philosophy ofScience

Moreover, it looks like the method of weak objectivity actually gets in the way of uncovering deeply rooted bias because it fosters a separation between thinking and feeling, so that scientists continue to be accustomed to not asking questions about their feelings regarding their own politics or ethics as they (might) relate to their own practice of science. The method of weak objectivity, on Harding's view, permits scientists to remain blind to their own widespread beliefs, in part because objectivism tells them they have to keep politics, ethics and other biases out of their research altogether. As well, objectivism, under which weak objectivity makes sense, calls for the elimination of all cultural and personal values and interests, and not the revelation and assessment of such factors. That is, it requires that one not engage in inquiry with one's interests and values at play, so to suddenly be in the position of examining one's interests and values seems peculiar and out of place for a properly functioning scientist. So, the method of weak objectivity does not provide a mechanism or even a rational basis for determining the interests and values that enlarge our understandings of the social and natural world and those that limit it. 20 Because of the inability of the method of weak objectivity to help us examine widely shared cultural assumptions, as well as the problems with objectivism regarding the insistence on a science that is completely neutral with regard to interests and values, Harding suggests an alternative conception of science, rejecting objectivism, and proposes an alternate method of objectivity, rejecting the method of weak objectivity. Harding does not think we can expect science to be completely free of all social and political values, and is therefore in agreement with Quine 21 and Kuhn 22 that objectivism, or the idea that science can be done absent of values and interests, is incorrect. However, she does think that science should not be comprised of questions and views chosen on the basis of mere political or cultural ideology. Hence, she calls for a method to determine just what kind of role ideology is playing in our science, which she thinks can then facilitate discussions about those ideologies. The result she hopes for is that once engaged in this process, we will have cause to be more confident that whatever

Critical Self-Reflection: Achieving Strong Objectivity our ultimately accepted scientific views are, they are less false or less distorted than the alternatives.

The Need for Strong Objectivity Harding calls the method of questioning deeply rooted cultural assumptions 'strong objectivity'. Harding thinks that this method of strong objectivity will allow us to uncover values and interests 'that first constitute scientific problems, and then select central concepts, hypotheses to be tested, and research designs5.23 What she has in mind supposes a collapse of the contexts of discovery and justification, claiming that what is considered 'science' comprises the activities in both discovery and justification, and that sometimes it is hard to see where one stops and the other starts. On this view of science, some of the activities usually reserved for the justification process would now be aimed at things that typically occur in discovery. As Harding explains, 'values and interests within a research community are to be added to the phenomena to be analysed with scientific rationality'. 24 In addition, the method of strong objectivity calls for the need to put the knower to be put on the same 'critical, causal plane as the objects of knowledge', and Harding thinks that theorizing from the perspectives of marginalized persons can do this. In essence, she is suggesting that we ask about our research problems, programmes and methods, 'How would this look to a marginalized person?' Another way to think about this exercise is this: Harding is asking us to think about how a particular scientific project - its questions, methods and results - might look to someone who is either not a beneficiary of such research or does not share many of the same cultural assumptions as the majority of the researchers engaged in such a project. That is, simply looking at the knower from the knower's perspective is not enough; scientists endorsing the sperm sagas did not imagine anything to be amiss with their insistence on the passivity of the egg (indeed, they took their assumptions about the passivity of females as evidence for the passivity of the egg) precisely because their

73

74

Objectivity in the Feminist Philosophy ofScience

own perspectives and experiences did not clash with the view of female-as-passive. But feminists recognized that these sagas and the characterizations of all that is female as passive didn't cohere with (all or most of) women's experiences; indeed, feminists do not see themselves as passive, and do not in fact act passively most of the time, so the female-aspassive view does not cohere with their experiences. At the very least, feminist critics were insulted by the insistence on the passivity of everything female in nature, including the female reproductive system. So, in answer to the question, 'How would the sperm sagas look to marginalized people?' - and where women are the marginalized group being reflected upon - the sperm sagas look suspiciously sexist. For Harding, it is the scrutiny prompted by a view from the marginalized perspective, characteristic of the method of strong objectivity, which facilitates the emergence or visibility of ideas, questions and theories that one would not have from the prevailing perspective. Note that the method of strong objectivity, then, could be thought of as a method for discovering certain ideas, rather than a claim that the world will always look different for marginalized persons. So, it might be that the method of strong objectivity does not always reveal anything new or different than the prevailing view - but employing the method makes discovering something new or different from outside the prevailing cultural views a possibility.

The Synthroid Case Harding views the method of strong objectivity as necessary for uncovering the role of widespread cultural biases as seen in the cases of the sperm sagas or race and intelligence studies. But there is another case in which widespread cultural assumptions are not the culprit behind ideologically driven science, but where I think strong objectivity can be useful (and is, perhaps, necessary). Consider the story of the Synthroid controversy. In 1987, Boots Pharmaceuticals (now a subsidiary of Knoll Pharmaceuticals) contracted with a researcher at the University of California in San Francisco to determine whether their own brand name thyroid drug, 'Synthroid', was 'biologically equivalent' to less expensive generic

Critical Self-Reflection: Achieving Strong Objectivity

75

alternatives.26 The researcher, Betty Dong, had already published research indicating that certain serum levels in patients' blood varied when generic products were used, and did not when the brand name drug, Synthroid, was used. Her initial research appeared to be very useful to Boots/Knoll, and they hired Dr Dong to continue her research. But what Dong found after further research was that far from being inferior to Synthroid, the generic alternatives were quite adequate when compared to Synthroid; no difference was found when comparing Synthroid to the cheaper generic alternatives. Of course, Boots/ Knoll did not take the news well, and threatened to sue Dr Dong if she proceeded as planned to publish her findings in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) as planned in April 1994.27 Eventually, however, Dong's research was published in JAMA in 1997, nearly a decade after the start of her research, and a full seven years after she obtained her results. During that time, Boots/Knoll managed to keep the market for Synthroid to itself. Aside from the legal issues surrounding the Synthroid controversy ~ Knoll settled a lawsuit out of court for $98 million for overcharging people for seven years - there are scientific problems here, as well. In what follows, I'll argue that Harding's method of strong objectivity can address just these problems. For one thing, on the received view, the researcher's identity is not supposed to play a role in the research being done; researchers are allegedly trained to disallow their interests and values in order to enter into their scientific practice. By disallowing discussion about the choice of researcher - because it doesn't 'matter' to real science Boots/Knoll was able to choose someone whom they thought might find in their favour and apparently not raise any suspicion within the scientific community; it is common practice for for-profit companies to choose and pay their own researchers. That is, they chose Betty Dong for a reason unrelated to her scientific skills, namely that her initial research appeared to show that Synthroid was biologically superior to the generic alternatives. Indeed, most pharmaceutical companies do choose and pay their own researchers, and then (through the use of professional sales and marketing personnel) provide the results to scientists and doctors

76

Objectivity in the Feminist Philosophy ofScience

who in turn are supposed to recommend these drugs to patients. The 'Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America' (PhRMA) organization has produced a ten-page document outlining its 'Code on Interactions Regarding Healthcare Professionals', which details the kinds and amounts of gifts and meals that sales representatives are permitted to give to doctors. 'Modest' meals and 'educational' seminars are permitted, and all persons working within the pharmaceutical field are 'strongly encouraged' to abide by this code of ethics. Of course, while the document stresses that '[t]his Code is to reinforce our intention that our interactions with healthcare professionals are to benefit patients and to enhance the practice of medicine', it fails to mention that representatives from pharmaceutical companies must have as their first priority - out of self-preservation - the increase in sales of the product(s) they represent. That is, the pharmaceutical companies fail to either recognize or admit that their 'intention' to simultaneously benefit patients and to sell more drugs is somewhat suspect, especially when these two goals may often conflict. In addition, in December 2000, the 'American Medical Association' (AMA) adopted a policy regarding the conflict of interest that arises when physicians are hired to research certain biomedical drugs, pieces of equipment or devices, etc. 28 This document specifically states that any payment for such research must be publicly announced and commensurate with the effort put forth by the doctor and at fair market value, along with several other requirements. However, such precautions seem to be inadequate for dealing with the close relationship between researchers and the companies who fund their research, and the outlines for ethical behaviour do little to ensure that those with financial interests (and the financial power to fulfill those interests) do not get to influence what goes on in scientific research and analysis. This entire system displays an institutionalized failure to even follow the demands of weak objectivity (and objectivism), but this failure has actually become part and parcel of normal science in the field of pharmaceutical research and development. So, there is not a widespread cultural bias operating in this bit of history, for in fact, our culture seems to prefer research done by disinterested third parties. However, the acceptance of such questionable research methods is so

Critical Self-Reflection: Achieving Strong Objectivity ingrained in the scientists working on pharmaceuticals that those methods go unquestioned - and even these dubious methods have even become accepted protocol as outlined in the ethical guidelines of both the PhRMA and the AMA. The flow of information from interested first parties to consumers seems antithetical to the goals of strong objectivity (and even, in my mind, to those of weak objectivity) and this system would have to be eliminated by Harding's insistence that we critically scrutinize the identities of the researchers, their backgrounds, where their financing comes from, and the like. That is, when researchers asked themselves, 'How would this research look to a poor person?', they might well answer, 'It looks like we're searching for and/or finding these results to make money', or something like this. So, if we employed the method of strong objectivity, the very choice of the researcher would become part of the scrutiny scientists are required to give to the data. If the method of strong objectivity were taken to an extreme, I suppose we could even require that persons with a real interest in how the data turns out, such as pharmaceutical companies, be disallowed from choosing or financing the scientists who conduct the research these firms require; that is, we would no longer deem research of this sort 'scientific'. Instead, these choices could be relegated to disinterested third parties that exist for the sole purpose of ensuring that objectivity is maximized.29 Interestingly, the individuals funding Dr Dong's research surely believed their funding gave them the right to withhold scientific information for a full seven years, and they did not hesitate to nearly ruin Dr Dong's career with legal action they could well afford to take. I'm not sure that Harding's strong objectivity can correct for this, since these individuals are not, strictly speaking, scientists, nor are their goals the same as those of an honest researcher. Consider how well this worked: During the seven years in which only a few individuals knew the truth about Synthroid, the public 'scientific' or 'objective' view about Synthroid was that it was superior to the generic alternatives. Doctors prescribed Synthroid (and not the generic drugs) precisely because the data they had been given, usually by the pharmaceutical representatives, indicated that preliminary research showed Synthroid to be more effective than the generic

77

78

Objectivity in the Feminist Philosophy of Science

alternatives. In essence, the scientific view was that Synthroid was better than the generic alternatives. But this view turned out to be not very scientific at all. The blatant interference of Boots/Knoll in the publication of the truth about Synthroid points to the need for scientists to examine the nonempirical factors that may be playing a role in their practice, in precisely the way suggested by Harding. Extra-empirical factors that give a group or individual the power to make their view (look) 'true' are the very ones that need to be examined by the scientific researchers themselves. Think back to Chapter 2 and MacKinnon's warning about those in power who have the ability to make 'true' things that are useful to them, but that are not necessarily upheld by the facts; this is yet another example of the way power can corrupt knowledge. Certainly this is an old problem that was well recognized by both scientists and philosophers of science even centuries ago - Galileo knew precisely how and why the Roman Catholic Church wanted to suppress his views about the universe. But the feminist critiques of today bring these worries back into focus: Haven't we come any further forward in our research than in the days of Galileo? The Synthroid case surely makes it look like we have not. Of course, under our current system of scientific review, there are some practical problems one would encounter in trying to ensure that the demands of strong objectivity be met. For starters, Boots/ Knoll had legal power over JAMA that effectively quashed the ability of a respected journal to print the truth, and it is not clear that adhering to strong objectivity would prevent this sort of issue. Second, there is not severe enough punishment for those who violate the standards that allegedly characterize 'science'; deliberately violating the standards of scientific research has not precluded Knoll Pharmaceuticals from engaging in other research that is currently being used as the basis for scientific 'knowledge'. Frankly, in any other business, this would be unthinkable. These practical matters are somewhat less complex than the philosophical issue lingering in this story, and it regards the issue of individual versus community knowledge. Note that long before JAMA published its paper exposing the fact that Synthroid is not

Critical Self-Reflection: Achieving Strong Objectivity superior to its generic equals, some individuals knew (and many likely suspected) that the claims of Boots/Knoll were incorrect or at least questionable. One might argue that the ultimate fact that the generic drugs were as acceptable as Synthroid didn't become real 'science' until it became public and accepted by the greater scientific community. The role of the community, then, seems central to whether or not something gets counted as scientific; until it had the stamp of community approval, the facts about Synthroid were not part of the science we now accept. The practical problems outlined above, as well as the issue regarding individual versus community knowledge, will be addressed in Chapter 5. The Synthroid case appears to be one that Harding thinks could have been handled (in much the same way as the Lysenko affair) by mere insistence on the necessity for the separation of discovery and justification that is characteristic of the familiar (though false) story we've been told about science (much like the Lysenko affair was handled). But I've tried to show that when a scientific community ignores its own failure to see (what seem to be obviously) inappropriate or questionable research methods, and then allows those methods to become sanctioned practices, it is only the method of strong objectivity that can uncover this. That is, this is a case in which the method of weak objectivity (and the mandate of objectivism) is not being followed, but there is an ideology that it is being followed. Thus, the interests of the pharmaceutical companies have become part of normal science so that it does not even look like there is a problem. It is these cases, in addition to those cases that resemble the sperm sagas, which require the method of strong objectivity.

Summary Harding's view of strong objectivity retains much of what seems useful about what she thinks of as weak objectivity, namely that it attempts to weed out those aspects of our reasoning that seem inappropriately guided by ideology or social and political interests. But Harding thinks that, far from being too strong, the traditional concept

79

80

Objectivity in the Feminist Philosophy ofScience

of objectivity is too weak. Harding takes traditional or weak objectivity to be something like value-neutrality, where what we strive for is to have no values in science. She thinks this doesn't happen in actual practice, though we (mistakenly) perpetuate an ideal of objectivity that science is value-neutral. This, she thinks, obscures the influence of values in science, and prevents us from being able to make good decisions about just which values and interests are good for science and which distort our views of the world. Instead of striving for value-neutrality, Harding advocates the idea that critical analysis of the subjects of science is necessary for increasing the extent to which science is objective, in the sense of being less false or less distorted than the alternatives. Harding is recommending that the individual scientist be considered part of the 'object of knowledge from the perspective of the scientific method', and therefore should ask self-reflective questions about their own assumptions, biases and values. As well, the projects selected should be questioned, especially in regard to whom they will benefit. For Harding, the maximization of objectivity involves more than just following the rigours of the scientific method, repeating observations, etc. Harding's recommendation that we need to scrutinize the researcher in much the same way we do the research is founded in the view that objectivity is mitigated by our cultural and personal interests and/or values. While we cannot function without some ideology or other - and hence cannot truly practise 'value-neutral' science - we should be able to have a mechanism for maximizing the extent to which our theories about the social and natural world are driven by something other than (arbitrary) ideology. Harding thinks that this same mechanism - strong objectivity - will prevent the 'might makes right' science she finds objectionable, because it will expose views that are accepted by some dominant group, but that in fact are not well supported by evidence, other accepted theories, or in the face of contradictory evidence. In addition, Harding's views highlight the need for the dominant group to be challenged by those who do not share some of their views, though it is open for debate whether strong objectivity can do just this task. Consider that values, biases and/or underlying worldviews play a powerful role in generating the very scrutiny that is

Critical Self-Reflection: Achieving Strong Objectivity required for a scientific theory, hypothesis or description to become accepted. This scrutiny usually comes from what scientists think of as peer review. However, peers often have the same values and perspectives, so the kind of criticism that like-minded individuals will launch at any given theory might not be as illuminating as those that come from outside a community with shared values. And this is a point Harding does appreciate, but she fails to make clear how strong objectivity the requirement of being self-reflective - can accomplish this. Peer review done from within the dominant group is not likely to shed light on any serious issues or underlying assumptions that others (with values that are relevantly different from the dominant group) may find objectionable. It is just difficult (if not impossible, in some cases) to police one's own biases and prejudices. Indeed, it was feminists who exposed sexist medical research, and anti-feminists who brought feminist errors to light. Moreover, historically scientists have not been very adept at (or even interested in) being able to see how their own interests or biases or values may be playing a role in the science they practise. (As suggested by the Synthroid case, they often make the false claim, though with the honest belief, that they are correcting for their own biases or values even when we've seen they have not done so.) Certainly one way, and the way Harding seems to suggest, to engage in the method of strong objectivity is for individual scientists to place themselves in the shoes of those who are marginalized. This requires them to reflect on how their own research programmes or questions or theories might look to someone who is culturally different than they are, or to someone who is socially, economically or politically marginalized. On this view, a white female researcher may ask what her programme might look like to a poor black person, and a black American male researcher might ask what his research might look like to a third-world inhabitant, etc. While this self-reflection may not reveal any troubling social or cultural issues in the research (i.e., we have reason to think that not all scientific research programmes are problematic in this way), Harding thinks it has the potential to do so in cases where there are underlying social and cultural interests or values playing a role in science.

81

82

Objectivity in the Feminist Philosophy ofScience

(One might well argue that a bit more explanation is needed to understand just how a privileged white American is supposed to know just how a poor African person might view anything, and this is a fair critique of views about researchers needing to be self-reflective and aware of marginalized perspectives. It is also fair to wonder how science that does not seem to immediately or directly connect to any social issue - say, science about which materials are better conductors of electricity for a particular purpose or science about the composition of black holes or quarks - might be judged from the perspective of marginalized persons. Practically speaking, marginalized persons, as well as the average lay person of any economic or social background, would have very little to say or think about the kind of science that probably engages most scientists. Laying aside this sort of critique of strong objectivity, however, is useful for now, as it allows us to discuss and explore just what ground could be gained if there was at least some care taken to reject objectivism, and critically reflect on what interests and values might be affecting one's research.) But Harding is realistic about the ability of our current scientific community to carry out the demand for engaging strong objectivity, since, as she points out, natural scientists are not trained to be, nor are they all interested in being, self-reflective in the way the method of strong objectivity requires. Furthermore, she claims researchers will be hostile to the idea that factors they see as 'outside science' will now have to be adjudicated along with science-as-usual.31 In addition to some of these problems, Harding's call for scientists to deliberately employ the method of strong objectivity relies heavily on the behaviour of the individual. That is, the method of strong objectivity is expected to operate at the level of each individual scientist who must (if engaged in the method) put him/herself in the position of someone with different cultural views, and then theorize about his/her own work from this perspective. However, another possibility is that the method of strong objectivity could operate at the level of a scientific community that itself is comprised of individuals who vary widely with regard to political and religious views, social and ethical values, cultural and economic backgrounds. The result of this might be that the method of strong objectivity would happen rather organically, instead of as a result of

Critical Self-Reflection: Achieving Strong Objectivity deliberation on the part of individual scientists. It is not that the individual scientists are not crucial for employing the method of strong objectivity, but rather than placing emphasis on the structure and composition of a community can more readily facilitate the method of strong objectivity than merely focusing attention on individual scientists. Helen Longino emphasizes this possibility, and I'll discuss her suggestions for enriching our concept of objectivity in the following chapter. Overall, Harding's view provides yet another clue regarding the importance of looking at not just individual scientists, but at the communities in which they practise, for ways to enrich and fortify our concept of objectivity. When Harding talks about the need to eliminate 'might makes right5 science, she is talking about the kind of might or power that comes from membership in a particular group; individuals who share the same beliefs and values get their power from their combined efforts. In order to ensure that science is being properly policed, then, we have to look at the epistemic value of a properly constituted community, one that seeks to ensure that its theories and descriptions of the natural and social world are not primarily driven by interests or values.

83

Chapter 5

Objectivity: A Community Achievement

In general terms, the central problem regarding objectivity in science as seen by feminists here examined (and, probably, by many nonfeminists not examined in this text) is that under traditional conceptions of objectivity, we are unable to reveal and assess the role of cultural and personal interests and values in science. Thus, we can't tell if this role is bad or good for science in any given circumstance. If the role being played by cultural and personal interests and values is judged to be bad for science, or if the role being played is deemed inappropriately large, then, it is argued, we need to have a way to eliminate or mitigate this role, thus increasing the extent to which science is objective. As discussed in the previous chapter, one way to reveal and assess interests and values in science is to examine them from an alternate point of view, and current conceptions of objectivity are inadequate for this task. But the admonition made by Harding is really supposed to apply to the individual scientist, who under the best of circumstances will be self-reflective, self-critical and self-policing of one's own interests and values. This may well work in some cases to improve the objectivity of science, all complications with it notwithstanding. But attention to the individual scientists and their proclivities for one set of values and interests over another, and/or their ability to be selfreflective in the ways required of strong objectivity, is incomplete. One must look at the community of scientists to further enrich the concept of scientific objectivity. It should come as no surprise to the reader that science is an extremely social endeavour, though shallow depictions of scientists do offer a contradictory picture. That is, the image of a lone researcher battling some dreadful disease in her laboratory, or fictional accounts of scientists depicted as loners (Dr Frankenstein comes to mind) serve

Objectivity: A Community Achievement

85

to enforce the wrong-headed idea that science is about what individuals do. A cursory look at scientific education, research strategies, peer review and prestigious scientific prizes and awards immediately shows just how social an endeavour science of any kind really is. Scientists are educated in groups and often must work together to share equipment, results and talents. Research is conducted by teams of individuals, and rarely is one person really working completely alone on any one project or another. Peer review is review done by colleagues, the purpose of which is to ensure real and replicable results. And prizes, such as the Nobel, are frequently awarded to more than one person for any particular achievement. More discussion of just how social scientific knowledge really is follows in this chapter. The level of technology used in, and the complexity, depth and breadth of, scientific research in the late-twentieth and twenty-first centuries simply demands that science be done by a community, not by individuals. This fact should not be underestimated, as it relates to maximizing the objectivity of our views about the social and natural world. One theorist whose work on the objectivity of science relies heavily on its social or community nature is Helen Longino. She attempts to enrich the concept of scientific objectivity not by paying attention to what individual scientists are doing, though this is certainly part of the process, but by how the scientific community is comprised and behaves. Longino claims that science is social, in the sense that doing science requires the interaction of individuals. I will address Longino's claims regarding the social nature of science, and then show how she takes this to be relevant to increasing the objectivity of science. Finally, her views will become part of the network of ideas that Fm suggesting are useful for understanding objectivity and how to maximize it in science.

Science as a Social Practice The idea that scientific practice is social and that a community generates scientific knowledge is central to Longino's views about objectivity. Longino's claim that science is social involves both a weaker and stronger claim. The stronger claim is that science is necessarily social

86

Objectivity in the Feminist Philosophy of Science

and that individuals can only have scientific knowledge derivative of what a scientific community already knows. The weaker claim is that science is social only contingently; that the extensive, on-going education, technical skill and reliance on the expertise of others needed to do modern science make it primarily and practically (though not necessarily) a social endeavour. In what follows, I'll give some reasons Longino is motivated to think of science as necessarily social, and others to show why one might only want to characterize science as contingently social. Then, her view of how the social nature of science helps to increase the objectivity of science will be presented. Ultimately I will argue that her views about objectivity can still be useful and informative even if we do not agree that science is necessarily social.

Science as Necessarily Social Longino makes some important (though rather obvious) points about the social nature of science. For one thing, she notes that scientists rely on each other for ideas, instruments and specific experimental methods, as well as for the general acceptance of each other's views about the natural world. In addition, the education required for becoming a scientist means that one has been initiated into a community that has its own procedures and traditions. Finally, she notes that the very existence of the scientific community relies heavily on our greater society valuing what scientists do. 1 This seems especially true today when research is so extraordinarily expensive that it simply cannot be done without the grants and funding that come from a community, a state, a nation, a university that has consented to use general funds for such research. As Longino sees it, scientific knowledge arises from a process that requires the attention, critiques and modifications suggested by other individuals.2 Furthermore, Longino notes that scientific knowledge is a special kind of knowledge that cannot rightly be called 'scientific' unless it arises from the kind of complex social interactions that characterize the scientific community, and points to peer review as evidence for the social nature of science. Peer review is supposed to be the 'gatekeeper' that determines which research will be funded,

Objectivity: A Community Achievement which papers are published in professional journals and in general what gets to count as scientific knowledge.3'4 Though these points may seem obvious, they serve as the basis for Longino's stronger claim regarding the social nature of science. Longino insists that science is necessarily a social practice, as well as that scientific knowledge can only be attributed to a community of knowers. On her view, individuals can have scientific knowledge, but only because they are part of a larger scientific community that has such knowledge. Individual knowers, on Longino's view, are not like devices that merely respond to stimuli. Motion-sensitive security lights are built to respond to motion by switching on a light. But we would not want to allow that the security lights 'know' when motion occurs; this attribution is something we reserve for creatures that are more complex than mere devices. Human beings are the kinds of creatures who can do more than register information or respond to stimuli. We are thinking beings who can reflect on things and decide the accuracy, justification and relevance of the various ideas and conclusions that arise in our minds from our interaction with the world. In addition, humans can engage in critical reflection of their thoughts and ideas. They can think, 'I wonder if this is correct?' and can be sensitive to issues about what they should or should not conclude from various observations. Moreover, they can reason about how best to organize their observations into meaningful theories about the world. But the norms about what humans should or should not conclude, or how best to organize observations, are generated purely from what individuals think. In addition, Longino thinks that gaining scientific knowledge seems to require meeting norms that may not be typical of other kinds of knowledge. The norms of science - how experiments are to be done, what is considered proper reasoning, how observations should be recorded, the appropriate terms and language of science, the proper technical tools or mathematics of science, etc. - emerged from a social practice of science, and individuals will be required to satisfy certain norms and rules which are (or have been) determined by the scientific community. On this view, individuals can't (and don't) establish the norms of science by themselves; rather, groups of

87

88

Objectivity in the Feminist Philosophy ofScience

scientists interacting have produced the norms regarding what counts as scientifically acceptable practice. Specifically, Longino thinks that there are two features of science for which the normative constraints of these features come from the interaction of scientists, and not from individual scientists: scientific observation and reasoning. She proposes that both (a) scientific observation and (b) reasoning involve the interaction among different voices and are therefore social in this sense.5 Scientific Observation

Longino claims that the observations of science are ordered and organized with regard to certain socially determined goals. So, when chemistry students are asked to observe the laboratory conditions in the initial phase of an experiment, the typical and acceptable observations will regard things like relative humidity, room temperature or light conditions, but not things like the number of students in the laboratory or the height of the lab assistant. Students learning to perform experiments must abide by certain norms of scientific observation. These norms, which pertain to the appropriate ways to record observations and specific rules regarding what counts as observed results, are not, argues Longino, the result of individual efforts. Rather, they arise from the social interactions among scientists, which result in some kind of consensus about the norms of observation. Also, scientists must negotiate to determine what counts as a competent experiment. As Longino explains, The ordering [of observation] rests on a consensus as to the centrality of certain categories (the speed of a reaction versus the color of its product), the boundaries of concepts and classes (just what counts as an acid), the ontological and organizational commitments of a model or theory, and so on. Observation is . . . an organized sensory encounter that registers what is perceived in relation to categories, concepts and classes that are socially produced. Both ordering and organization are (dependent on) social processes.7 In addition, Longino claims that science requires observations to be evident or accessible to others. She thinks that this requires

Objectivity: A Community Achievement something like the repeatability of experiments, where even when experiments are not repeated (as most are not), the presumption is that another observer in a similar experiment would perceive similar results.8 Of course, Longino notes that it is usually only in controversial cases that the scientific community requires public repetition of an experiment - in effect saying, 'Show us so that we can judge' - but she claims that the fact that we require repeatability of observation in controversial cases demonstrates the supposition that if pressed, we could do the same in non-controversial cases.9 Longino claims that when different perceivers 'ascertain intersubjective invariance (or its absence)' of an observation, something like legitimacy is afforded those observations.10 This, says Longino, confers upon those observations a kind of status that is required for an observation to count as scientific. She claims that, 'There is no way but the interaction of multiple perspectives to ascertain the observational status of individual perceptions'.11 So, on this view, observations must be repeatable so that others can see them, and only then can they be granted the legitimacy or status of scientific observations. Before turning to a case that illustrates how observations must meet certain requirements, which themselves are socially determined, Longino gives us additional reasons why she sees scientific knowledge as necessarily social. Scientific Reasoning

The second feature of science that Longino takes to be social is that of scientific reasoning. Primarily, Longino focuses on justificatory practices, such as reasoning about the plausibility or usefulness or accuracy of various ideas and theories. She characterizes justificatory reasoning as a 'practice of challenge and response', where challenges to a claim are met with the reasons to believe or accept it. In turn, these reasons can then be challenged - 'on grounds of truth and of relevance' - to provoke more scientific reasoning.I2 On this view, justificatory reasoning is set within a context of individuals who must interact with each other, and is not properly construed as 'interaction between an individual and the object of her cogitations'.13

89

90

Objectivity in the Feminist Philosophy ofScience

This is to say, I think, that the process of justifying and selecting scientific theories is not down to individuals working alone, because modern science favours a view that treats the process of justification as involving answering challenges - and challenges to individual ideas and theories do not come only from the individual, but from the community in which individuals practise science. Theories are justified (in part) by their ability to handle counter-examples and challenges presented by other scientists, not just their ability to handle the challenges that come to the minds of the individual proponents of such theories or views. Indeed, the McClintock case from Chapter 3 illustrates just this: McClintock working alone was onto something that advanced the science of genetics tremendously, but without the involvement of her colleagues, she got absolutely nowhere with her (correct) ideas. So, justificatory reasoning is done within a social context, and the greater scientific community imposes norms on scientists regarding what will count towards justification or as proper scientific reasoning. Consider that when mistakes in justificatory reasoning are made, it is often the scientific community that imposes sanctions for those mistakes, in the form of publicly renouncing or revising certain views, claims or theories. 4 Different perspectives introduce a kind offeree onto our own scientific world, where individuals become disciplined or sanctioned into abiding by certain norms of reasoning, which themselves have been established by particular social groups.15 By endorsing the view that science is necessarily social, Longino is not denying that individual contributions have been crucial for the development of scientific knowledge but is saying that what makes the brilliant scientific ideas of individual scientists knowledge is that their ideas have survived the scrutiny and critique of others. Longino notes that Galileo, Newton, Darwin and Einstein were all brilliant, but says that what made their brilliant ideas knowledge were the processes of critical reception. Comparing the fate of their ideas with those of a thinker of arguably equal intellectual power, Freud, demonstrates this. The (justificatory) activities of knowledge construction as distinct from belief formation (a generative process) are the activities

Objectivity: A Community Achievement

91

of individuals in interaction, of individuals in certain relations (of criticism and response) with others.16 Longino sees scientific knowledge as requiring reasoning that requires a kind of validation that must come from the greater scientific community, not merely from the self-validation of one's own ideas. The Sperm Sagas Revisited

To illustrate the social nature of scientific observation and reasoning, consider again the sperm saga case. Scientists advocating a view of human conception that did not incorporate the idea of the passivity of the ova had to show, by observable data, that ova are not passive. They had to show - in the sense of showing others - that the sperm saga accounts had mischaracterized the role of the ovum in conception, and that in fact, several observable features of conception showed the ovum to be involved in conception. This 'showing' of data likely involved the presentation of what could be viewed under the electron microscope (the microvilli that are viewed to assist the sperm in the penetration of the ovum wall), as well as the presentation of the observable evidence to show the presence of certain female enzymes that facilitate conception. In addition, the observations claimed to be evidence for the ovum-as-active view of conception had to conform to certain scientific norms regarding what counts as proper observation. So, for example, the use of the electron microscope required the validation of the scientific community, who confer upon our observational methods the proper status. On this view, observations are granted the right status by the scientific community based on their interactions and (sometimes confrontational) conversations with one another. So, data obtained by crystal ball reading will not count as evidence, but data obtained by the electron microscope will, and this is entirely due to community acceptance of the latter and not of the former. Finally, the revisions to the sperm saga (or ovum-as-passive) accounts of conception were only accepted once they met certain challenges. Arguably, the sperm saga accounts of conception would still be alive today were it not for the fact that intellectual negotiation

92

Objectivity in the Feminist Philosophy ofScience

between scientists resulted in their demise. Note that in this case, it was not just the efforts of individual scientists working alone to revise the conception models that changed how we think about conception - though Longino wouldn't deny the importance of such contributions - but additional validation was needed from the scientific community, validation that Longino sees as resulting from the meeting of challenges. Based primarily on the considerations regarding the social nature of both scientific observation and scientific reasoning, Longino claims that science is necessarily social. This is a strong claim because it denies that individuals can have scientific knowledge that the scientific community does not have. On her view, scientific knowledge cannot be understood in terms of individual intellectual processes, because this alone will not involve the social interaction among others that gives us the normative constraints on observation and reasoning in science. So, she explicitly rejects the idea that science is the 'accumulation of individuals' knowledges [,ric]\17 This means, to use a prior example, that McClintock didn't truly know anything about genetic transposition until her views were publicly validated, or at least acknowledged as correct by enough members of the scientific community in which she practised that hers was no longer an isolated, fringe view.

Science as Contingently Social The weaker claim about the social nature of science is that it is only contingently social. This view stems from the fact that modern science requires extensive, on-going education, technical skill, and reliance on the expertise of others (among other things) and is therefore primarily and practically (though not necessarily) a social endeavour. This weaker claim does not deny that in principle individuals could attain scientific knowledge on their own - outside the scientific community - but emphasizes the practical unlikelihood that current scientific practice could be done in this fashion. What motivates the view that science is contingently social can, I think, be found in the McGlintock story as told in Chapter 2.

Objectivity: A Community Achievement

93

Consider this characterization of her story: For years before the scientific community validated her views about genetic transposition, McClintock knew her view was correct. She was not using terribly complicated research methods - she mainly planted maize and observed what was happening to its offspring - and her initial experiments even predated the Watson and Crick work in genetics, so she was not relying on their work. And, when she presented her repeatable, and therefore proper, observations, the general scientific community still did not understand her position, and many labelled her crazy. But still, knowing that she was right all along, McClintock seemed to have scientific knowledge of something that, at that time, was not known by the scientific community. What is troubling for those endorsing this interpretation of the McClintock story is that Longino's strong claim denies that we can (rightly) say that McClintock had scientific knowledge prior to the date when the rest of the scientific community accepted it. (Even more puzzling is pinning down that date: we would have to say it was some time after the date of publishing publication of her second of two disastrous papers, 1956, and some time before she won the Nobel Prize in 1983. But saying precisely when her views reached the status of knowledge by obtaining the validation that Longino views as necessary for conferring upon her scientific knowledge is difficult.) Ultimately, one might see as counter-intuitive the view that McClintock did not have scientific knowledge prior to the general acceptance of her views, and might therefore reject the claim that science is necessarily social. What I will argue in the following section is that the role that the social aspect of science plays is crucial for Longino's views regarding how to increase the objectivity of science, but that we need not think of science as necessarily social in order to make views on objectivity that stem from the social nature of science work. That is, I will suggest that even if one wanted to hold that there would be cases in which individuals working outside a scientific community could have scientific knowledge — and Longino would deny this could be characterized as such - I think that this possibility does not do much harm to the overall view about the link between the social aspect of science

94

Objectivity in the Feminist Philosophy ofScience

and objectivity. I think that all that is required for these sociallyfocused views about objectivity (and how to maximize it) to work is the claim that science (and scientific knowledge) is primarily social. That is, as long as we view the practice of science as a social enough endeavour, (and I do not think that this is a terribly contentious point), then the attentiveness towards the composition and behaviour of the scientific community, and not merely on to the individuals within the community, will not seem an unreasonable step. And this is the step Longino takes, for she thinks attention to the community of scientists can offer us an alternative process for increasing the objectivity of scientific knowledge.

The Social Aspect of Science and Increasing Objectivity Longino thinks that the social account of science solves the problem of having to control for the role of background assumptions, which are the assumptions we have that encode our cultural and personal interests and values.1 She thinks that if left unchecked, these interests and values will corrode or threaten the objectivity of science. If we think of science as merely a group of individuals producing knowledge - and if we ignore the substantive social component of scientific knowledge - then we run the risk of not being able to control for, or minimize the influence of, (inappropriate) individual subjective preferences.19 On this view, increasing objectivity becomes a task for scientific communities, not (simply) a task for individuals, because here intersubjective criticism is seen as central to the process of increasing objectivity, and intersubjective criticism cannot take place in a community of one person. The philosophical shift occurs in focusing on science as a social practice carried out by individuals working in concert, not individuals working independently of their colleagues. In the following discussion, then, I will show how objectivity might be increased through the intersubjective criticism envisioned by Longino (and others), and why the social aspect of science is important for this, but will suggest that viewing science as contingently social does not corrupt this conception of objectivity.

Objectivity: A Community Achievement

95

Why Focus on the Community? In the previous chapter, I've highlighted Harding's claims regarding how individual researchers can behave in order to increase the extent to which the science they produce is objective. Keller, too, suggests that the behaviour of individual scientists - whether they are statically or dynamically objective in their approach to research can correct for inappropriate behaviour or commitments in science. These views offer revisions for objectivity that rely heavily on how individuals think and behave as researchers. What is lacking in these accounts that can be provided by focusing on the community ofknowers? In general, reliance on individuals to procure objectivity only goes so far, as it is stalled or impeded by the difficulty researchers often have in recognizing their own assumptions, values and interests as they operate in science. Specifically, as some cases from the history of science have revealed, researchers are often completely unaware of the interests, values or biases that are playing a role in how they view the evidence, what theories they produce, and what questions interest them in the first place. What's worse is that individuals rarely have the ability to be able to accurately characterize the interests and values that are so widespread that they become invisible. It isn't just that individual scientists have idiosyncratic values and interests that they may have difficulty recognizing, but that they practise science in a community that itself is shaped and mitigated by widespread cultural beliefs, those shared values and interests that either are not readily recognized, and or, if they are, are simply seen as accepted fact rather than questionable social and/or political assumptions. I'm thinking here of the Burt case. How many of Burt's colleagues accepted his results because they upheld what was already considered a simple truth? How many contemporary scientists wondered about what results might be found if people of colour tried to replicate Burt's data? The latter question is the kind Harding invites us to ask. But note that individual scientists would have been rather poor imaginers of this alternate scenario, because they simply would not have identified as a 'questionable assumption' the view that intelligence is

96

Objectivity in the Feminist Philosophy ofScience

innate (they'd already decided it was) or the methods by which Burt came to this conclusion. So, asking individual scientists to scrutinize and critique the social and cultural values and interests that may be playing a role in their own scientific practice is risky business, since they may or may not be able to perceive these roles, even with genuine effort. One's 'situation' - one's own cultural and social positions that come with various biases, interests and/or values - may be the very thing that precludes one from being able to perceive and critique one's own position, especially when so many of these interests or values must seem invisible or perfectly reasonable against the backdrop of others who are like-minded. I am not suggesting (nor is Longino) that it is impossible for some individuals to recognize and assess their own cultural and personal interests and values adequately some of the time. Rather, I am suggesting that relying solely on the individual's perception of his/her own interests and values does not seem like the most reliable way nor is it the only way - to make sure that science does not become reflective merely of what we think ought to be the case. So, what is lacking in an account of objectivity that is based on individual researchers is a kind of insurance policy against an individual's blindness to his or her own social and cultural values and interests. This is what needs to be added to the network of ideas regarding how to maximize objectivity in science. So, who is able to perceive and then scrutinize and criticize the cultural and personal interests and values when individuals are blind to their own? The answer Longino gives is: others who practise in the scientific community but who differ with regard to some of their social and cultural interests, values, preferences, biases, etc. That is, while individuals will struggle to perceive or be aware of their own interests and values as they play a role in science, scrutiny and criticism from the point of view of others — specifically others who do not share some relevant interests or values - will more likely reveal the interests and values in science that may not seem obvious to individual scientists or to casual observers of any given research project. Ultimately, the claim is that a community of all scientists produces scientific knowledge, and what becomes scientific knowledge has

Objectivity: A Community Achievement

97

'been produced collectively through the clashing and meshing of a variety of points of view*?0 Indeed, even in non-scientific realms, it seems that consensus among like-minded people is not nearly as interesting and useful and accurately reflective of reality as consensus among people with vastly different world views. To put this into simple terms, a group of people who all own sedans made by Toyota may well agree that the Toyota sedan is the very best car on the road. But this is hardly enlightening or reliable to anyone seeking to really know which is the best sedan on the road. Instead, market research that is done on a variety of consumers, with vastly different experiences, and from different socio-economic backgrounds, and with different carownership histories, is done to learn just which cars are really the best on the road. If this seems an obvious point, then you see just the problem with having only like-minded researchers partake in intersubjective criticism. The intersubjective criticism engaged in between those with some different interests and values is what allows our interests and values to be effectively adjudicated by the scientific community, and not merely given a pro forma stamp of approval. Once this happens, the role played by social, cultural and political interests and values can be 'defended, modified or abandoned in response to [community] criticism5.21 Note that Longino is not saying that all values or preferences or interests in science are bad or threaten objectivity; some may well be defended as benign or even useful to attaining the truth. Rather, the point is that in order for objectivity to be increased, those values, preferences or interests need to be made public and scrutinized. The result will not be that all values or interests will be thrown out of science, but that by making public the problems with certain assumptions we will be less likely to endorse theories and descriptions of the natural world that rely too heavily on false or questionable assumptions, interests or values. This process - the intersubjective criticism and subsequent response to such criticism - is what Longino thinks increases objectivity in science.22 On this view, then, we should not look (merely) to the views and practices of individuals, though certainly the actions of individuals might get us part of the way to objectivity. Nor should

98

Objectivity in the Feminist Philosophy ofScience

we look only at the theories and descriptions they produce to assess the level of objectivity of their work. Rather, we should look at how a scientific community interacts as well as how it is comprised, which together are thought to provide a process for increasing the objectivity of science. In order for this process to work, individual scientists are not required to be self-reflective - although I don't think Longino would think this is bad for science — because this isn't the main or only activity that increases or secures some level of objectivity. As Longino explains in her most recent work, The Fate of Knowledge, 'The social account builds reflexivity in, but does not leave it up to individual self-examination (which is often blind to the deepest assumptions). Awareness of values and presuppositions is imposed on inquirers through interactions with those who do not share them'. 23 Instead, the suggestion is that each scientist should practise according to the shared standards of his or her own field, and as long as the community is properly constituted, (some) cultural and personal interests or values that play a role in the resultant hypotheses, experiments or theories will be revealed and adjudicated by others in any given field. Longino doesn't claim that all interests and values will be revealed, nor does she think that even a properly constituted community is infallible. To state the obvious, this is an imperfect process, and is largely why she thinks of objectivity as being a matter of degree. Also, some interests and values may be judged by the community to be benign, or perhaps helpful, and therefore will not be eliminated once revealed. In addition, Longino does say that some values and interests will be shared by the entire cultural community, and will therefore be invisible. These widely held views will 'not become visible until individuals who do not share the community's assumptions can provide alternative explanations . . . without those assumptions'.24 In order to see how Longino's suggested process might work, consider again the sperm saga case: The scientific community tolerated the publication of textbooks that misrepresented the process of conception. Then, in an article written by Gerald and Heide Schatten in 1980, the mistakes of the textbook accounts of conception were revealed, and the Schattens highlighted the particularly sexist assumptions that

Objectivity: A Community Achievement

99

seemed to permeate the accounts of conception.25 More generally, the feminist-oriented critiques of science have questioned the extent to which science does reflect sexist assumptions, interests and/or values - this isn't to say that all charges of sexism are warranted, but that feminists are the ones raising these issues to the level of public scrutiny, which in turn requires the attention of and interaction between the scientific community. There is an interesting story behind the sperm saga case that may even illustrate how intersubjective criticism can work better than the sperm saga story itself: There is some debate regarding the time-line attributed to the changes in the conception stories. For example, Paul R. Gross, in bashful Eggs, Macho Sperm and Tonypandy', 26 argues that scientists knew ova are not passive as early as 1919. He further argues that feminists have inappropriately characterized the position of biologists with regard to the passivity of ova. However, note that even if Gross is correct, he does not explain how misrepresentations of conception, which he claims were known to be wrong by mainstream science, found their way into mainstream textbooks, nor does he explain why these went unchallenged until the breakthrough work of biologists in 1980. In addition, Gross cannot explain the enduring quality of so many metaphorical ways of speaking about anything female that rely so heavily on (false or questionable) stereotypes of women. Furthermore, note that Gross's article appears in a book edited by Noretta Koertge titled A House Built on Sand: Exposing Postmodernist Myths About Science, a book that is dedicated to showing where feminists have mistakenly identified sexism in science, and where their claims have failed to be either logical or accurate. This is precisely the sort of intersubjective criticism that is welcomed by the view that objectivity can be maximized by inviting critique from those who do not share some salient set of assumptions. The article written by Gross, and the book edited by Koertge, provide examples ofjust this occurrence, whereby a community becomes engaged in discussion (argument) about the challenges to certain claims, critiques and observations. It is no accident that a more diverse community than the one which initiated the sperm saga stories - one that does not share the same

100

Objectivity in the Feminist Philosophy ofScience

assumptions and values about gender, in this case - was the community from which questions arose about what we now know to be questionable scientific results. It is also no accident that critiques of feminist views stem largely from those who do not look at the world through the same lenses as some ardent feminists (some of whom are rightly characterized as 'postmodernist', and who, in fact, set out to correct views where feminists have either overstated or misrepresented their claims). The on-going debate about the extent to which parts of science are sexist and which are not serves as an example of what happens in science when divergent viewpoints are forced to face each other in public scientific debate. It is the interaction of scientists - when they engage in scientific debate and intersubjective criticism - that appears to be fruitful for increasing the objectivity of science. This is because when scientists engage in intersubjective criticism, they are more likely to expose the cultural and/or personal interests and values that (might) underlie scientific research and theories. And, once these interests and values are revealed, the scientific community will then have to reflect upon what do with them - whether to eliminate, modify or encourage them. But note that the conversation above regarding the back-andforth critique of scientists and critics of science (i.e., not all intersubjective criticism will come from within the boundaries of formal science) surrounding the sperm saga case did not at all rely on a view about whether scientific knowledge is either necessarily or just contingently social. I have suggested that Longino's process for increasing objectivity can be accomplished without endorsing the view that science is necessarily social. I think that as long as we view science as primarily social, we will give appropriate emphasis to the interaction that individual scientists must have with each other. We could, perhaps, allow that individuals can (under some extremely unusual circumstances, given the very social nature of modern science) have scientific knowledge. But this alone does not seem to undermine the claim that intersubjective criticism can increase the objectivity of scientific knowledge. What Pm suggesting also results in a kind of liberation of objectivity: though Longino wants to characterize objectivity as arising out of

Objectivity: A Community Achievement

101

social processes, why not place objectivity on a continuum of individual and communal efforts, both of which might seek to reveal and assess the cultural and/or personal interests and values of scientists? So, on this view, we might deem projects or research done outside or without intersubjective criticism as less objective than those projects that have undergone such criticism. In addition, on this view we can still make sense of the idea that some individuals are less likely to produce objective ideas or results than others; that is, we can make sense of ideologues who seem to produce highly questionable scientific results. I am not suggesting that critical self-reflection will get us very far with regard to objectivity; scientists are already supposed to be doing this and there is (arguably) room for a lot of improvement. This improvement comes, I think, in the form of the intersubjective criticism that comes from diverse communities, and in thinking of objectivity as something to apply (not only to individuals but) to communities. How much intersubjective criticism is permitted or encouraged by a community is some indication of the level of objectivity of the science produced by such a community.

Key Elements to Intersubjective Criticism There are a few key elements to this process that are left somewhat vague by Longino, but I will here try to provide some structure to three of these elements. One has to do with the diversity or composition of those engaging in the 'transformative criticism' viewed as necessary for increasing the objectivity of science. Second, more needs to be said about cases where intersubjective criticism does not clearly lead to straightforward explanations of natural phenomena; that is, where the requisite community response is not entirely made clear even after the 'clashing and meshing' of divergent viewpoints. This isn't a problem Longino needs to solve, but attention to this aspect of her view will clarify the position for the reader. Finally, since so much of what has been exposed in science as either fraudulent or biased has come from outside the scientific community, the reader

102

Objectivity in the Feminist Philosophy ofScience

should note the saliency of the critique of science from outside its direct membership. I will take each of these points in turn.

Diversity It is clear that for intersubjective criticism to work in the best possible way, the scientific community must be comprised of individuals who do not all share the same cultural and personal interests and values; a properly constituted scientific community must be diverse. This diversity is thought to increase the depth and scope of the criticism occurring in any scientific community.27 The revelation of the sexism apparent in the sperm saga accounts of human conception was brought about in part by the critique from the feminist point of view. (Indeed, the feminist critiques of science were once primarily focused on finding and eliminating sexist assumptions or values in science.28) The lack of diversity among scientists was part of the problem identified by these feminist critics, who claimed that the mostly male composition of the field of science29 had contributed to the incorrect descriptions of and theories about conception, and was part of the reason sexist assumptions were allowed to prevail. Once feminists came into the picture, these assumptions and values were revealed and challenged. Finally, along came the critics of feminists (especially of feminist postmodernists) who had their own claims about the history, relevancy and accuracy of science as portrayed by feminists. The historical account of the developments in reproductive biology illustrates how divergent views had an effect on science and serves as an example of the clashing and meshing of views envisioned for the maximization of objectivity in science. However, Longino does not fully address the (rather complex) issue of the extent and type of diversity required by her view, though she very strongly endorses its: '[T]he greater the number of different points of view included in a given community, the more likely it is that its scientific practice will be objective.' Her focus, of course, is on issues of gender, though racial and economic diversity is another type of diversity regularly endorsed by feminists. In societies where features like gender, economic and racial differences give rise to various distinct experiences, viewpoints, interests

Objectivity: A Community Achievement

103

and values, one would likely require the scientific community to be diverse with regard to these features. But surely there are other, perhaps not so obvious, features of individuals that might matter to us, and others still that won't matter enough to be relevant to the requirement of diversity in the scientific community. And, once we decide what types of diversity are most relevant or important, we still have to decide how much diversity is enough to ensure the type of intersubjective criticism that is likely to increase the objectivity of science. In addition, and related to this point, it needs to be made clear how the intersubjective criticism envisioned in the scientific community is different from the kind of intersubjective criticism already claimed to be part of the scientific process. Longino's view builds in a much greater diversity than what she currently thinks marks science. So, on this view, a community that is not properly constituted cannot engage in the kind of transformative criticism required for increasing objectivity. What this means is our current scientific community may not be diverse enough to engage in real intersubjective criticism, or the kind that increases objectivity in the way imagined by Longino. Again, the diversity of the community is a key element in ensuring that Longino's process of intersubjective criticism is distinct from what we already have. The project of exploring what kind of and how much diversity is necessary for Longino's view to work is currently under debate. In order to more fully understand what must be fulfilled for a scientific community to count as diverse - and many feminist philosophers of science call for just this, more work needs to be done in this area. I regard Longino's view as having provided (yet another) reason for undertaking the project of determining how much and what kind of diversity we want in science (as well as in other areas in which we think diversity matters), and not as a view that completes this task for us. That is, I view Longino's (probably deliberate) vagueness on the issue of diversity as indicative of her recognition that her own project gives rise to additional projects that should be undertaken, but that are not solved within the context of her social view of knowledge. Finally, note that Longino's call for diversity leads to a peculiar consequence if not clarified. Suppose a scientific community became relatively homogeneous with regard to the tolerance of each member,

104

Objectivity in the Feminist Philosophy ofScience

so that the community contained no or few racists or sexists. Taken at face value, Longino's recommendations placed within this hypothetical socially tolerant community seem to suggest that we incorporate racist and sexist views into our community in order to comply with her call for diversity, and hence achieve greater objectivity in science. This seems odd. It is one thing to say that we need to hear from voices currently being ignored, but another to say that, should we achieve the tolerant society that feminists aim for, we need to recruit sexist and racist views to enhance the objectivity of science. That is, there is supposed to be epistemic value in diversity because hearing from various different voices is supposed to increase the breadth and scope of our intersubjective criticism. But does this mean we should not strive for tolerance, since this will eliminate (at least one kind of) diversity with regard to social and political values of race and gender? Longino's answer to this puzzle is that the differences relevant to diversity do not have to be culturally or politically important differences, but that it so happens in our society that some of the differences that generate different perspectives are culturally and/or politically important. She claims that as long as we are talking about beings whose perspectives are limited in some way, the increasing of objectivity will require critical interaction among different perspectives.31 But this still does not fully explain how feminists (and others) can simultaneously work to achieve a tolerant society, and also be required to have some racists and sexists on hand so that we can engage in objectivity-increasing intersubjective criticism of the sort outlined by Longino. Longino's call for diversity might make sense given our current intolerant social and scientific community, but remains problematic against the feminist efforts to eliminate some kinds of ideologies. Sorting through this problem is, of course, a project for future attention, but one that should not be forgotten.

Response to Criticism A second key element to Longino's view is her appreciation for the complexities involved in finding good, reliable scientific theories and projects within the critiques and debates surrounding various research programmes. Here I'd like to highlight what happens when

Objectivity: A Community Achievement

105

intersubjective criticism seems to not be immediately or straightforwardly transformative in the way suggested by the sperm saga accounts. That is, revealing cultural and personal interests and values has epistemic value because it is supposed to allow us to better understand our theories, and can also inform our theory choice, but what about cases where criticism does not lead to clear-cut answers about which theories or descriptions to choose? Consider first some straightforward cases. Paul Broca's now infamous attempts to show that brain size correlated roughly with race and intelligence serve as one straightforward case in which a conclusion — that Broca was wrong - seems clearly indicated by the results of the scrutiny of his research. Simply put, Broca believed that more intelligent humans had larger (i.e., heavier) brains than persons of average or below-average intelligence. Furthermore, he believed that non-whites had smaller brains than whites, and women smaller brains than men.32 This was a simple theory that suggested fairly straightforward experiments, namely to weigh the brains of various persons of known race and intelligence and see what is suggested by the results. This is precisely what Broca did, though he ran into so many large brains belonging to non-whites and women, and so many small brains belonging to men of prominence (though he couldn't know it at the time, Broca's own brain was only a bit over average33 ), that he had to use vast amounts of creativity and sleight-of-hand types of excuses to explain away the results that were not congruent with his theory. Today we can see that his theories were driven by his own values regarding the racial superiority of whites. The epistemic value here is that, instead of trying to account for the anomalies in brain size with ad hoc excuses, we can conclude that the theory is not a reliable predictive tool (i.e., men of intelligence do not, on average, have heavier brains than others), or simply that the theory is wrong. So, exposing the bias of the sort evident in the Broca case leads to theory revocation or rejection. In addition, exposing bias can show how improper metaphors or assumptions about gender can inhibit our imagination. This is best illustrated in the sperm sagas or pacemaker models, where reliance on the metaphor of the 'slumbering' ovum and the 'master-molecule',

106

Objectivity in the Feminist Philosophy of Science

and on stereotypes about the passivity of anything female or feminine, were inhibiting the imagination of individuals trying to devise proper models for conception and genetic transposition. But there is an additional result to intersubjective criticism that is not so straightforward. In the following discussion, I'll outline a case from anthropology in which intersubjective criticism has led to inconclusive results. This case shows how intersubjective criticism, and the revealing of cultural or personal interests or values, sometimes only leads us to be agnostic about certain theories. But in addition, this case will show that, even when we must be agnostic about certain theories, revealing the assumptions and values operating among theories can suggest and inform future research projects. So, to be clear, I will not suggest that agnosticism about certain subjects is a bad thing, but am merely making the reader aware that intersubjective criticism sometimes will not lead directly to consensus about a social or natural phenomenona. Man-the-Hunter Story / Woman-the-Gatherer Story Debates

There is a debate regarding the development of tool use in human history, and it centres around whether the driving factor in tool development was due to the hunting practices of early male hominids, or to the gathering practices of early female hominids.34'35*36 (One might questions why some hybrid view that holds that both hunting and gathering led to tool development is not more likely the case, as evidenced by many other developments throughout history that seldom sprung from just one kind of activity. My own personal view is that we are over-committed to bifurcated ways of thinking, i.e., we often see situations as 'either-or' situations when they need not be seen this way. A bit more will be said on this later, though arguably this is fodder for another project altogether.) The man-the-hunter story is deemed androcentric or malecentred, because it focuses on the activity of males while largely ignoring the role of females. This account explains, among other things, tool development by pointing to the needs of early hunters for appropriate survival methods. These weapons were used, it is supposed, both for defence against aggressive animals and to hunt animals for

Objectivity: A Community Achievement

107

food and pelts. The man-the-hunter accounts essentially argue that males developed and refined tools largely as a response to the need for more effective hunting methods.37 An example of the kind of evidence used to support the man-thehunter theories is the existence of hunting spears that are 400,000 years old, discovered by a team led by the German archaeologist Hartmut Thieme. 38 Advocates of man-the-hunter stories might point to this kind of finding as evidence for the view that hunters designed and refined their weapons in order to kill large game from a distance by throwing the spear. And, if they can effectively prove that the 400,000-year-old hunting spear pre-dated any other found tools, they might conclude that hunting practices undertaken by men initiated tool development. The gynocentric woman-the-gatherer explanations for tool development downplay the role of hunting and emphasize the presumably larger role played by those, namely women, who foraged for food. On this account, early hominid women used tools to dig for, carry and prepare food, and probably to defend themselves from animals they might encounter while foraging. This account views women as having been the primary innovators of tool use and refinement.39 Evidence for this view is largely based on the supposition that tool use developed much earlier than stone implementations, and consisted of sticks and reeds used to dig, carry and prepare foods.40 But these organic materials would likely not leave physical evidence for archaeologists to find. So, woman-the-gatherer proponents rely heavily on the model of gathering behaviour among hunter/ gatherers as evidence for what they take to be the likely use of tools by women.41 The settling of this debate, however, is not the subject that should be emphasized here. Rather, it is the fact that this debate can be seen as having come to something of a stalemate. None of the available data has decided this debate, and even how we interpret the available data will depend upon whether we work in the man-the-hunter or woman-the-gatherer 'framework'.42 How does intersubjective criticism help us in this situation? I think intersubjective criticism - the interplay between the manthe-hunter and woman-the-gatherer proponents - that led to this

108

Objectivity in the Feminist Philosophy ofScience

kind of impasse has been effective in making public and clear just how background assumptions, biases, values and interests can shape the way we understand or explain empirical evidence. It also takes away the invisibility of these assumptions, so that once we see the underlying assumptions of both views, we will take the agnostic position and choose neither the man-the-hunter nor the woman-thegatherer account. I view this as being the best epistemic stance, since neither account seems to provide conclusive evidence about which activity, hunting or gathering, led to tool development. (Also, assuming humans have not changed much in their basic needs and drives, it seems entirely likely that the division of labour was not quite as neat as some histories claim. I'm here questioning the very premise that men didn't gather, and that women didn't hunt. When you are hungry, you get whatever you can to eat in whatever way you can, and it seems entirely likely that while largescale hunting of large prey was done primarily by men, women most likely hunted a bit, too. And, while gathering may have been what women and children were doing most of the time, certainly men on the hunt occasionally picked fruit along the way to sustain themselves. This is all supposition, but that's the point: there just is not conclusive evidence about whom to give credit to for tool development.) So, here the epistemic value to revealing bias and interest is just that we are led to remain doubtful that either theory is wholly correct. As for the extent to which objectivity is increased in cases that resemble the stalemate reached in the tool development debate, Longino explains that perhaps 'less gender-centric accounts of human evolution may eventually supersede both of these current contending stories'.43 Here, the epistemic value is also found in the future research programmes that might be necessary to settle these kinds of debates. For example, one might search for evidence of a less gendercentric account of human nature. The point is that once the stalemate is revealed, and once one understands the values and interests that are supporting these theories, one has a better idea of what to look for or what lines of reasoning to pursue in order to explain tool (and human) development.

Objectivity: A Community Achievement

109

In addition, this case - and others that are similar in complexity or lack of resolution even with intersubjective criticism - suggests that we should not focus solely on individual theories or bits of scientific knowledge as the things that should be measured as more or less objective, and focus instead on the extent to which our methods of inquiry permit transformative criticism. Longino uses this characterization only once in her thesis, but I think it is crucial to this view. That is, she says that 'a method of inquiry is objective to the degree that it permits transformative criticism5,44 so she is not merely focused on the results of inquiry - though she clearly has this in mind, too but also on how inquiry is allowed to occur. It isn't that transformative criticism will reveal to us all the appropriate explanations for natural phenomena, but that having a community regularly engaged in this process will give rise to a greater level of objectivity than a method of inquiry that is blind to or deliberately dismissive of alternate viewpoints or underlying social and cultural interests, preferences, and values. Intersubjective criticism has the potential to reveal when it is appropriate for a community to remain agnostic with regard to certain natural phenomena they seek to explain; uncovering our cultural and personal interests and values helps us get to agnosticism about some theories. In addition, intersubjective criticism that leads a scientific community to an agnostic position will suggest other areas of research in attempts to settle the very debates that have reached a stalemate. What I'm arguing here is that Longino's view ought not be seen as providing a mechanical device for churning out theories that are more objective than those we would have otherwise. That is, intersubjective criticism is not going to guarantee that debates can be readily settled, nor that we will know what to do once we have uncovered cultural and personal interests and values that underlie some of our science. Rather, the suggested process at least allows us a means for revealing social and cultural interests that are currently not being revealed by mainstream or traditional conceptions of objectivity; indeed, some conceptions of objectivity even deny that interests and values should play a role in science, and therefore fail to see their role

110

Objectivity in the Feminist Philosophy of Science

in science. (Many scientists may well believe that they are able to check their ideologies at the laboratory door.) This mechanism - for revealing and engaging in debate about interests and values, preferences and biases - is sorely needed. That is, as Longino argues, values and interests do play a role in science, but what kind of role they play is up to us. However, we cannot make educated, rational decisions about the role of values and interests in science if we are ignorant or dismissive of them. Criticismfrom outside Science

The preceding discussion gives rise to a question, then, about exactly where transformative criticism comes from. Longino has argued for, and Pve tried to defend, the view that some amount of diversity of the scientific community is needed to bring to light interests and values in science that may not be perceived by like-minded individuals. In addition, the examples provided here have largely been taken from the history of science, whereby racial and gender assumptions have been questioned from within the scientific community. However, it is curious to note how little attention philosophers and critics of science have paid to the types of criticisms that could be and are launched from outside the scientific community, criticism that probably has the potential to reveal some interesting information about the values and interests that underlie science. That is, the scientific community largely remains insulated from critiques of non-scientists who lack the education and experience to engage in technical or scientific debates, and are therefore usually ignored. This is something that should be addressed. Many philosophers and critics of science suspect (and, I think, are mainly correct in thinking) that divergent viewpoints in science will lead to the kind of intersubjective criticism that will refine and improve science. But when an entire scientific community has been educated, trained and mentored to think about itself in a certain way, even great amounts of (certain, not-yet-defined, kinds of) diversity may still make some values and interests of scientists invisible to anyone except those working outside of science.

Objectivity: A Community Achievement

111

Indeed, many of the feminist theories about science have come from philosophy, and they offer perspectives on specific research programmes that may not be the same perspectives offered by practising scientists. Journalists also offer critiques of how science is used or abused, what politics or religious beliefs are driving certain research programmes, or what financial interests are operating in science. These are valuable resources for scientists who may either fail to see these interests and values, or be reluctant to admit just what is driving their research. What I am suggesting is that if a method of inquiry is to really allow for transformative criticism, then it cannot be allowed to insulate itself from critiques that come from outside of science. I am not suggesting that philosophers or journalists should be considered part of the scientific community - they aren't - but that a conception of objectivity that relies on the intersubjective criticism of a properly constituted community of knowers should at least include some provision for the role of critique from outside the scientific community. I do not think that Longino's recommended process for increasing objectivity in science disallows the intervention of criticism from outside science; I just think it should include the outside critique as one additional feature that serves to make intersubjective criticism more meaningful.

Summary Given the complexities and difficulties of requiring individuals to engage in critical self-reflection, Helen Longino conceives of objectivity as being on a continuum based on what the community of researchers is doing, not based on how individual scientists behave or think. Her work provides both a philosophical and practical basis for the view that objectivity can be increased through closer attention to the constitution of the scientific community, as well as how that community interacts. Longino emphasizes the extent to which the role of social and cultural interests, biases and values can be assessed given a fuller understanding of the scientific community, and claims that the composition and behaviour of the community contributes to the

112

Objectivity in the Feminist Philosophy ofScience

extent to which a community can engage in transformative criticism. Ensuring that this criticism can take place is one method that has the potential to increase the objectivity in science. I have emphasized that Longino's view gives us one reason to engage in critical analysis of the kind and extent of diversity we need (or want) in our scientific communities. In addition, I have suggested that Longino's suggestions for increasing objectivity in science, and her social account of scientific knowledge, should not be thought of as a kind of mechanical process for churning out objective theories, but rather that her view gives us at least one way to reveal and then assess the interests and values that underlie so much of science. Finally, I have suggested that criticism from outside the scientific community may well be revealing of interests and values in a way that cannot be revealed by members of the scientific community.

Chapter 6

Building a Network of Ideas

The feminist critiques of science began as a collection of projects devoted to exposing and eliminating sexist and/or androcentric bias in science, but later broadened into projects that offered both critique and revision of the philosophy of science. These revisions include examinations of scientific objectivity, especially in light of accounts from the history of science that illustrate the extent to which scientists are imperfect objective observers, and also the extent to which our science itself is imperfectly objective. In addition, the concept of objectivity has been utilized in the philosophy of science (as well as in epistemology) as a way to discuss and explore the various types of cultural and personal influences that operate in science. That is, when we simply ask how objective science is or isn't, the ensuing discussion can illuminate cultural and personal influences that may not be apparent if one just takes the results of research at face value. Questions about objectivity also serve to direct discussions about just how much neutrality we can or should expect in science. It is difficult to maintain a view of science as pure from interest and values once one has studied the actual practice of science throughout history. The awareness of the complexity of scientific research, of course, means that our expectations of science become altered, as we no longer assume that all that is scientific is also objective. What has been presented here is an analysis of some central feminist critiques and suggested revisions for objectivity, which themselves are intended to enrich how we think about objectivity. In general, none of these views advocate the value-neutrality commonly associated with objectivity, and they all underscore the idea that cultural and/or personal interests and values do play a role in science, and that science cannot be otherwise.

114

Objectivity in the Feminist Philosophy of Science

Tensions to Resolve Within these views of objectivity are some startling and thoughtprovoking claims, not all of which seem reasonable (or even particularly useful) if taken individually. In what follows, I will review the more problematic issues within these views about objectivity that focus on power and politics, forms of objectivity (i.e., static or dynamic), critical self-reflection and intersubjective criticism. Taken alone, and in their more radical forms, these claims are problematic in various ways. However, when the moderate interpretations of these views are taken together as part of a network of views, they shed light on how we might enrich our concept of objectivity, and also give us clues as to how we might maximize the extent to which our scientific theories are objective. In addition, I will argue that we can embrace the valuable insights expressed by these views without having to endorse the more extreme portions or interpretations of these views. Moreover, in taking these views together as part of a network of ideas, rather than as stand-alone fixes to problems regarding scientific objectivity, we will avoid the pitfalls of having selected only one strategy for thinking about scientific objectivity.

Power and 'Split Realities'? In Chapter 2, I emphasized Catherine MacKinnon's worries about how gender politics can corrupt scientific objectivity. I suggested that her view is best seen as a warning about what is wrong with an unexamined version of objectivity. But why treat her view merely as a warning, and not as something more? Here, I will argue that MacKinnon's more radical claim about reality, objectivity and our perception of reality (which she repeats in various places) makes it difficult to treat her view as anything but a warning. The trouble with MacKinnon's view of objectivity, as I see it, arises from her suggestion that gender inequality creates a 'split' reality between males and females. I hinted at this radical claim when I emphasized her ambivalence about objectivity, as well as her claim that 'there are (at least) two object realms of social meaning'.1

Building a Network ofIdeas

115

Elsewhere, in a discussion regarding the difficulty of adjudicating rape cases, MacKinnon goes so far as to suggest that [t]he deeper problem is the rape law's assumption that a single, objective state of affairs existed, one that merely needs to be determined by evidence, when so many rapes involve honest men and violated women. When the reality is split, is the woman raped but not by a rapist? Under these conditions, the law is designed to conclude that a rape did not occur.2 This statement is placed within a debate about how best to determine the facts surrounding rape cases, and does not explicitly address issues common to the philosophy or practice of science. But statements MacKinnon makes to the effect that realities are split, and her doubt about the existence of a 'single, objective state of affairs', might lead one to conclude that this view entails that males and females do not live in the same world, and in fact have distinct realities.3 The problem with the suggestion that there are distinct realities for males and females is that accepting this claim leads to the corruption of concepts such as accuracy, truth or even rational argument. This is because if males and females inhabit distinct realities - if their worlds are literally different - then there is no sense that can be made of conflict between male and female views. Debates between males and females cannot be settled on the basis of evidence or how the world is, since the world is, on this view, different for both of them: there is no reality common to both genders which could provide the basis for a rational resolution to such debate. Without the possibility of there being common truth-makers for our claims about the social and natural worlds, it is difficult to see how rational debate can exist. Nor does it seem possible to make sense of the concept of objectivity, since what is objective for females won't be what is objective for males. The concept of objectivity, then, loses its importance and usefulness on the split reality view. Once one is unable to point to facts and rational connections between theories about those facts to settle disagreements between inhabitants of different worlds, the only arbiter between competing theories is, I think, brute force. But this is a strange thing for

116

Objectivity in the Feminist Philosophy ofScience

MacKinnon to endorse, given what she says about the corruptive nature of power; I suspect MacKinnon finds objectionable the idea that force or power is the only thing that can settle disagreements that arise between individuals who do not share the same realities. It is also a peculiar view to endorse since so much of MacKinnon's work relies heavily on rational argumentation about facts and evidence. Presumably, MacKinnon does not want to give up entirely the possibility that feminists can rationally argue their points, even with individuals (males or non-feminists) who may disagree with them. MacKinnon's hyperbolic way of speaking may be effective in calling attention to the differences in male and female experiences of the world, and in emphasizing the extent to which what we perceive in or think about the world may be drastically different than what others perceive. But treating as true the radical claim about males and females living in different realities inhibits our progress towards rational debate about various scientific and social issues. It also exaggerates the differences between male and female experiences of the social and natural world, for we have some reason to think that a great deal of the world is experienced similarly regardless of gender. Finally, the feminist projects of enriching objectivity - projects which are supposed to be beneficial to all of us, both male and female - make little sense if what is objective for females isn't objective for males or if males and females cannot experience, and therefore talk about, the same (or most of the same4) reality. I don't think we have good reason to conclude from either gender inequality or gender differences that males and females inhabit distinct realities in the strong way (sometimes) suggested by MacKinnon. This is why we ought not accept the split reality view, and should instead appreciate that the angle from which we perceive the world - which exists apart from what we think about it - affects what we learn or believe or know about the social and natural world. The real benefit of focusing on the role played by gender politics in science is that we become more aware of the fact that science is not immune from our social and cultural assumptions and values. Power can be corruptive of objectivity, since gaining and keeping power is seldom about facts or truth, but rather about the power itself. The discussion about power also serves to bring into focus the fact that

Building a Network ofIdeas

117

simply saying something is 'scientifically objective' is often a sort of code for the fact that like-minded individuals agreed upon something. This isn't so bad if the like-mindedness is innocuous, but the whole point of the discussion about power and facts is to remind us that the like-mindedness might not be all that innocuous. Indeed, the whole problem with agreement among like-minded individuals is that it is often their agreement, not the facts behind the agreement, that drives what gets accepted as fact. By thinking more critically about just what underlies 'the facts', and by questioning the extent to which gender politics and power might be influencing our scientific views, one can be alerted to how and where science gets corrupted by power. This is just one part of a network of ideas that serves to enrich our concept of objectivity as well as inform us as to how to improve the quality of science in general.

Dynamic Objectivity: Only One Path to Success? In Chapter 3,1 suggested that Keller's views about domination - as she characterizes it in terms of 'master molecule' models, for example — serve as a cautionary note for feminists working on issues in the philosophy of science. As well, I think Keller correctly claims that we should be interested in the philosophical or ideological views that may be expressed in a specific scientific project. Finally, her study and description of Barbara McClintock's work does serve to show how an approach unique to her field yielded scientific success, even though it initially flew in the face of dogmatic views. But Keller's overall endorsement of dynamic objectivity is, I think, somewhat undermined by the history of science. One thing that historians of science reveal when they recount scientific discoveries or advances is that the methods and approaches to research, if anything, vary widely. It is difficult to imagine a single, unified way to characterize the approaches to objects of study - the individual, idiosyncratic ways of implementing the scientific method - as utilized by the great (or even competent) scientists of historical record. In fact, no matter how unique the approach to scientific research, whether one empathizes with nature or seeks to control or destroy it, it seems there is always the possibility to understand nature. I doubt

118

Objectivity in the Feminist Philosophy ofScience

Keller would deny that even static objectivity has been successful in producing reliable, useful and accurate scientific theories and descriptions of the social and natural world, since she characterizes (nearly all of) modern science as largely having endorsed an image of science that rests on the view that the criteria of objectivity are distance from and control over nature. As long as we see modern science as having been largely successful in producing good, useful and/or accurate science (our planes do fly, after all), it is difficult to see why one might think that one, single alternate approach ~ the dynamic approach or any other singularly characterized approach - can be reliably and predictably much more successful than any other approach. Endorsing one particular approach to objectivity as leading to fuller understandings of nature seems to assume that the path to scientific success is simpler, more straightforward and less variant than what is suggested by the history of science. Oddly enough, Keller herself seems to recognize - though perhaps doesn't without fully appreciating its significance - the extent to which reliable, good or accurate scientific claims have arisen from a 'multiplicity' of research styles and approaches. She states: Fortunately, however, the practice of science is in fact quite different from its ideological prescriptions. Scientists differ greatly in their approaches to their subjects and in their styles of work. These differences reflect the different ways they think about nature and themselves; individual scientists give widely varying meanings to the pursuit of objectivity, paralleling the wide range of meanings attributable to autonomy. Indeed such differences are essential to the vitality of the scientific enterprise. They are also responsible for a basic thesis of this book: actual science is more faithfully described by the multiplicity of styles and approaches that constitute its practice than by its dominant rhetoric or ideology.5 There are a number of things in this passage that seem at odds with what Keller says in other places regarding the need for scientists to engage in dynamic objectivity, and the pejorative way in which she describes and characterizes static objectivity. Furthermore, the McClintock story is not presented by Keller as one alternative to

Building a Network of Ideas

119

research, but as an 'exemplar' of dynamic objectivity in practice, which Keller thinks will undermine the commitment to masculinity she thinks is typical of modern science. So, one wonders, which is it? Is dynamic objectivity the preferable approach, or should we seek to have a multiplicity of approaches in science, as she indicates above? There is an unresolved tension between the call for dynamic objectivity and an endorsement of multiple approaches to research. It seems unlikely that one particular approach will provide a recipe for scientific success, especially given what we know from the history of science and if we accept that modern science has at least been modestly (some would argue extremely) successful in producing reliable, accurate claims and theories about the social and natural world. Though we have been presented with good reason to think dynamic objectivity can lead to good science, this is not the same thing as having provided an argument for the view that it is preferable to all other approaches. In addition to the problem of endorsing a particular approach to objectivity, earlier I mentioned an additional issue within Keller's view that, I think, forces us to be cautious about dynamic objectivity. This has to do with how one polices one's own desires and influence when one is (simultaneously) supposed to behave in a close, connected, 'loving' relation to one's object of study. It seems the closeness one has to one's object of study may, in fact, be corruptive of the actual process under study. For example, consider the primatologist who lives with primates, comes to empathize with and love them, but in doing so becomes so involved that the primate community's behaviour itself becomes affected by (or infected with) the behaviour of the primatologist. In this scenario, a close, connected, loving researcher does not seem uniquely or especially qualified in policing his/her own desires and interests. In fact, the main problem with dynamic objectivity is that it doesn't include a mechanism for revealing and assessing cultural and personal values and interests where they might underlie our scientific theories and descriptions. Being able to perceive cases where ideology or preference underlies science, and then making judgements about the appropriateness of such influence, is a major part of what is (or should be) involved in increasing the degree to which science is

120

Objectivity in the Feminist Philosophy ofScience

objective. The fact that dynamic objectivity isn't alone suited to this task means that its employment cannot assist us in discovering and adjudicating the values and interests in science. But this is acceptable as long as we place the benefits of dynamic objectivity within the larger scheme of feminist projects devoted to finding ways to reveal and assess the interests and values in science, and do not take dynamic objectivity as a lone solution to the inadequacies of objectivity. The distinction between static and dynamic objectivity reminds us of the power that ideology can have on scientific projects and should prompt us to question, though perhaps not abandon, dogmatic views. Being cognizant of this distinction also allows us to think more critically about what it means to be an observer, and what it need not mean. For example, being a good observer does not mean one must be detached from her object of study, and it might mean that one actually does get involved with her object of study in a way that has (arguably) been held in low regard by those endorsing traditional scientific methodology. Finally, the attention given by Keller to the role of dogma in science given by Keller (for example, as illustrated by her own research into cellular mould aggregation) serves to remind us that metaphors and models in science, while useful, may also serve to inhibit our imagination, and that adherence to certain ideologies may cause us to be blind to inconvenient facts. So, as part of our network of ideas, the distinction between static and dynamic objectivity functions as a reminder about the corruptive power or metaphors and dogma, and broadens our conception of what appropriate and useful research methods might be used in studying the social and natural world.

The Individual and the Community In Chapter 4,1 outlined Sandra Harding's case for the role of the individual in engaging in critical self-reflection of the sort that would, in various cases, reveal cultural and personal interests and values. I also called into question the idea that individuals would be particularly adept at this, since even with genuine efforts to perceive them, we are

Building a Network ofIdeas

121

often blind to our own cultural and personal preferences, assumptions, values and interests. In addition, the suggestion that individuals police their own views shows a naivety about the ability of socially privileged individuals to see things from the perspective of marginalized persons, something recommended as part of the strong reflexivity required for strong objectivity. In the literature of feminist standpoint epistemology, one thing that is emphasized is that people who are marginalized because of their gender, race and/or class are (sometimes) in the position to be aware of facts that are invisible to those not in these marginalized positions. On this view, for example, poor people in general may be more aware (and suspicious) of the importance and influence of money while wealthy individuals may take for granted the money they have and therefore overlook the influence of finances on scientific projects. But if we accept that marginalized persons have experiences that give them perspectives not had by the dominant group, it is hard to see how sincere trying on the part of the dominant group could result in their being able to know how things might look to those who are marginalized. That is, how is a wealthy person supposed to know how a scientific research project might look to a poor person, when he/she has no experience of what it is like to be poor?6 Of course, there are general aspects of poverty that might be readily obvious to those who are not poor, and cases where non-marginalized persons may make fairly good guesses regarding how marginalized persons might perceive certain research projects or conclusions. However, if we take seriously the claim made by Harding and other standpoint theorists that marginalized persons have valuable perceptions of the social and natural world that are formed from their social positions (and experiences), then it is difficult to see how individuals who lack those experiences could imagine or conjecture about what research projects or conclusions might look like to marginalized persons. This is a slightly different problem than just our usual unawareness of our own ideology or prejudices. Asking or requiring that scientists consider how their research projects or results may look

122

Objectivity in the Feminist Philosophy of Science

to marginalized persons (or even someone who is not a beneficiary of such research) presupposes that the experiences of marginalized persons (or persons who are not beneficiaries of research) could be, with some effort, correctly imagined by scientists, most of whom will be, because of education and intellectual ability, privileged. I am sceptical of the ability of individuals to reflect on their own ideological views from the perspective of individuals with whom they may have little contact and about whom they may have little knowledge. The exercise in self-reflection and the practice of putting oneself in the shoes of a marginalized person and then theorizing from this assumed social position does not, I think, go far enough in providing us a way to reliably reveal our own interests or values (though certainly self-reflective critique of the sort Harding endorses might sometimes yield the kind of results she hopes for). This is in part why Helen Longino's view about the social nature of science seems so attractive: individuals may not be the most reliable or capable monitors of their own preferences or biases. However, others who do not share all of the same cultural and personal beliefs may be in precisely the right position from which to scrutinize our theories and descriptions in science. Emphasizing the social interactions of scientists, especially their negotiations regarding which theories and descriptions seem most reasonable as well as their debates about the appropriateness of certain values and interests in science, seems a good way to overcome the blindness that individuals may have to their own values and interests. But one of Longino's most startling and radical claims is that scientific knowledge cannot be attributed to an individual working alone or outside of science, since on her view scientific knowledge is the result of the social interaction of scientists. In Chapter 5,1 outlined Longino's two main reasons for construing scientific knowledge as necessarily social: one concerned the publicity and replicability for review by others of scientific observations, and the other had to do with scientific reasoning being characterized by meeting certain challenges raised by the scientific community. Longino thinks of science as necessarily social, in both the constitutive sense (it is not a collection of what individuals know, but what the scientific community has come to know together), and in the generative sense

Building a Network ofIdeas

123

(it is created through a process of critical analysis and modification done by a scientific community).7 But I've suggested that there are problems with what I identified as Longino's stronger claim about the social nature of science, namely that it is necessarily, and not contingently, social. By restricting scientific knowledge of the individual as dependent upon the Validation' of the community, Longino cannot adequately explain, for example, what was had by Barbara McClintock prior to the community's validation of her theory of genetic transposition, since on Longino's view she cannot have had scientific knowledge of it. Of course, I am inclined to say that even prior to the community's validation of her views, McClintock 'knew' that genetic transposition was correct, and that this knowledge was scientific, and to deny this just seems counter-intuitive. Aside from this sort of 'she-knew-it-before-the-rest-did' types of revolutions in science (a number of which are recounted in Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions), there is also the possibility that areas of scientific research could become less social and more individually driven. I am thinking of areas of computer science, for example, where coding and programming can be done in a highly individual fashion, and success with mechanisms for controlling (or, in the case of viruses, corrupting) data do not seem to (always) require the validation that Longino claims is required for achieving scientific knowledge. Either the program works as planned or it does not work, and the norms that drive this can be, I think, highly individual, and need not be validated by the community of computer scientists. Though it is certainly true that computer scientists want to show each other their capabilities, and that they learn languages and techniques from each other, it does not seem that scientific knowledge about a particular program, its design and intricacies, requires input from a larger community in the strong sense suggested by Longino's view. I also see it as possible (though perhaps not probable) that individual scientists working in various fields of natural science may, in the way so many discoveries have happened, stumble onto a miraculous phenomenon that itself triggers a kind of scientific knowledge. Though perhaps not as fully formed and adjudicated as publicly scrutinized scientific theories and descriptions, I think we should be able

124

Objectivity in the Feminist Philosophy ofScience

to attribute to individual scientists knowledge of phenomena they study that itself has not been explicitly approved or checked by the scientific community. Of course, the claim that science is contingently social, though a weaker claim than that endorsed by Longino, is itself significant, since contingent facts about scientific practice have a binding and determinant effect on how science works and what counts as scientific. That is, most (if not all) of modern science in fact requires so much social interaction that it would be difficult to over-emphasize the large role played by social interactions in science, except to state explicitly that individuals cannot have scientific knowledge without community approval. This is what I find objectionable about Longino's stronger claim: that individual scientific knowledge is forbidden without the validation of a larger scientific community. Furthermore, the use of intersubjective criticism as a way to increase objectivity in science - which is one of the central themes of Longino's overall view of science - does not require that we characterize science or scientific knowledge as necessarily social. Displacing the necessarily social characterization with a contingently social one does nothing to corrupt or weaken the claim that objectivity is increased through intersubjective criticism. In addition, it allows us to make sense of both the idea that individuals can be more or less objective - surely some people are better at setting aside their own beliefs or at reflecting on their own biases than others and the idea that community scientific practice can be more or less objective. Hence, I've suggested that we not accept Longino's stronger, more radical claim about the social nature of science, and instead accept the view that science and scientific knowledge is contingently social. Views recommending critical self-reflection among researchers as well as the subjection of our views to intersubjective criticism together draw our attention to the need to examine the social and cultural assumptions that underlie our scientific research programmes and theories. Taken together, these strategies show promise in revealing where science isn't strictly speaking objective, and thereby give us opportunities to decide - based on rational discourse and logic whether anything needs to be done about it. That is, not all subjective

Building a Network ofIdeas

125

or non-objective assumptions in science are corruptive of science. The key to maximizing objectivity in science, however, is in making rational choices about our social and cultural assumptions or values as they influence science, rather than simply assuming that the methods of science preclude any inappropriate assumptions or values from seeping into science. Critical self-reflection and intersubjective criticism cannot, of course, reveal all of our values and interests and assumptions, but this is too high a requirement; rather, we ought to embrace any method that assists us in adjudicating extra-empirical factors operating in science.

Summary: Why the Network is Useful, and Future Projects Catherine MacKinnon's contribution to this project is her warning about the role impact of social power on what we call objective, as well as on the ability of powerful individuals and groups to make their views look objective when they are not. For those who agree that male domination permeates our social structure, one way to solve the problem is to challenge the underlying sexist and androcentric interests and values that permeate science. In order for these interests and values to be revealed, however, the powerful must not be permitted to protect their views from outsiders or critics. In addition, when financial and/or personal gain is tied to attaining data and theories that are the most reliable, accurate and objective that is, where there is financial incentive to get it exactly right - this does more to motivate inquirers to be more (rather than less) objective than any single other factor.8 Indeed, the reverse is also true: where financial or personal gain comes from attaining data and theories that lean toward a particular view or idea, this is when things go so wrong. Of course, much of our bias and interest seeps into science in far less direct ways, so merely looking at circumstances of financial and personal gain to trigger our radar for bias in science will not be a perfect solution. But certainly this is one aspect of science that could stand a philosophical overhaul: though scientists often insist their or their benefactors' gain does not play a role in how

126

Objectivity in the Feminist Philosophy ofScience

their science turns out, we should not believe them, and should, in fact, insist upon a policy change that would make this occurrence rare and undesirable. The discussion of dynamic objectivity illustrates how ideology can inform a particular scientific project, as well as how metaphors or models in science can be predisposed to endorse dominant structures or hierarchical structures where there may be other equally good characterizations. While Keller's endorsement of dynamic objectivity faces some unresolved tension with her view that multiple styles of and approaches to scientific research are good for science, ultimately Keller claims that self-reflection on the part of scientists is needed to more fully reveal the interests, ideologies and values of its participants. I also examined the position calling for the critical self-reflection on the part of scientists, or 'strong objectivity5, whereby individual scientists are called upon to ask themselves how their problem choices, research programmes and accepted theories might look to individuals who are marginalized or who do not share the same world view. This view gives rise to questions about the social positions of researchers as being relevant to their science, and suggests that analysing who is doing science will allow us to reveal and then assess the role of cultural and personal interests and values in science. I suggested that the call for critical self-reflection seems to downplay the significant difficulty that individuals have in seeing past their own views, assumptions and ideologies, and hence the possibility that they might not be the best candidates for revealing their own interests and values. Furthermore, individuals who are dedicated to thinking about how their research or theories might look to marginalized persons may in fact be incapable of imagining this no matter how much effort is put into this. The view regarding intersubjective criticism builds in the kind of critique that might come from self-reflection, but does not require that this be done by the individual, though this is not ruled out. Rather, the programme calling for intersubjective criticism advocates a scientific community that is diverse enough to allow for intersubjective criticism, criticism that stems from various (and not only similar) cultural and personal backgrounds. On this view, the kind of

Building a Network ofIdeas

127

intersubjective criticism that is supposed to be carried out by current peer review projects is inadequate, mainly because our current community of scientists is not oriented toward diversity, nor does it appropriately respond to criticism. That is, truly effective intersubjective criticism requires that the scientific community permit what Longino has called 'transformative criticism' if it wants to be engaged in an increasingly more objective enterprise.9

Why the Network Is Useful As I see them, the main benefits of these views fall roughly into three categories. First, these views that tell us that science is not as objective as advertised. The critiques of inquiry that arose from various feminist perspectives did just this. Of course, many philosophers of science preceded the feminist attempts to show the subjective nature of science and scientific inquiry, and, as I suggested in Chapter 1, we might well look at the feminist critiques of science as follow-up projects to the work done by Kuhn, Quine and others in the early to mid-twentieth century. The value of being aware of how and where science is not objective is that once one begins to see how gender or racial politics or cultural ideologies have influenced particular scientific theories or research programmes - think about the McGlintock case or the Burt case then one starts to look at all of science a little bit differently. That is, the awareness of these sorts of shortfalls in science prompts us to want to know where other such cases are and, more importantly, how we might avoid them. Who wants to repeat the mistakes made by Burt's colleagues or delay the acceptance of the brilliance of McClintock? The awareness that science is not free from bias or value suggests that perhaps our conception of scientific objectivity is something that can be (usually or reliably) generated just from employing the standard scientific methods. The philosophical conception of science as some kind of insulated, special kind of knowledge simply doesn't fit with reality. Second, and perhaps more philosophically interesting, these views give us strategies for enriching our concept of objectivity. One need not think of 'objective' as meaning something like Value-free'

128

Objectivity in the Feminist Philosophy ofScience

or 'just-the-facts'. But how should we think of objectivity if not as something akin to being Value-free'? It seems best to think of objectivity as being on a continuum, where theories, research programmes and methods are more or less objective, instead of either purely objective or purely subjective. This enables us to make informed and rational decisions about just how objective one project or view really is, and avoid the pitfalls of having only two choices (subjective or objective) in determining the merit of a particular scientific project or theory. We might well also think of objectivity not just as 'valuefree', but also as it relates to power structures, financial incentives, diversity and the like. And, though we may not have all the information we might want in making such a decision, by placing the objectivity of a view or theory, or even a set of practices, on a continuum, we may well revise our assessment given future data. Finally, the concept that objectivity is a matter of degree still allows us to make sense of the intuitive idea that we want our science to be more rather than less objective, though we may well recognize that perfect objectivity is an elusive goal. The third main benefit to the network of feminist views regarding objectivity is that it gives us strategies for actually increasing the extent to which scientific theories and descriptions of the social and natural world are objective. It is one thing to merely point out where science is not objective - valuable information, but limited in its ability to foster improvement in inquiry - but quite another to actually present philosophical approaches to objectivity that have the potential to maximize the objectivity of science. The strategies suggested within the network of ideas for increasing objectivity are as follows: we have reason to question, and should question, the role of power in deciding what gets counted as 'objective' scientific knowledge; we should mitigate (or eliminate where possible) the extent to which financial gain plays a role in scientific research; objectivity need not be thought of as having arisen from some detached or dominating position, as it may well be maximized by a more 'dynamic5 rather than 'static' approach; we should question dogmatic beliefs and practices; and self-reflection and criticism from various viewpoints, especially those not well-represented in the

Building a Network ofIdeas

129

scientific community, may yield insights that would otherwise remain invisible to the scientific community.

Future Projects Finally, any really interesting philosophical view should prompt us to wonder about what future projects we might undertake, as well as give rise to more questions we might address in those projects. In my view, some philosophical questions that ought to be addressed by future programmes are as follows. First, what is a properly constituted scientific community? Examples set forth here highlight why a community of like-minded, socially similar individuals might limit or hinder the extent to which theories and research programmes are subjected to intersubjective criticism. As well, a scientific community that is not diverse provides a favourable climate for the 'might makes right' kind of science we hope to avoid. So, just when is a scientific community diverse enough? Do we want all kinds of diversity, or just some? Second, what is a reasonable or rational system that would allow science to be financially underwritten by various organizations without fostering fraud, corruption or even subtle bias in science? What ethical or moral rules would need to apply to this system in order to maximize the objectivity of both the practice and its results? Third, what ought to be done about the pedagogy of science, which still fails to give students a comprehensive view of science, and mainly teaches the received view? Would changes at the beginning levels of science education help to underscore the importance of diversity, self-reflection, examination of values in science, etc., and the components here proposed as benefitting science? Would a science based on this sort of education be more objective, or less rife with bias and values, or not? Finally, what ought to be the role of science in society? Should science be accorded the special, elevated epistemological status it enjoys today, or is this really a grasp at a kind of certainty that we really cannot attain? Should other considerations, such as ethical ones or cultural ones, take precedence over science? Projects undertaking

130

Objectivity in the Feminist Philosophy ofScience

these questions might focus on the extent to which our scientific pursuits are morally good - for both people and the environment or whether scientific research ought to be at all connected to politics or political movements.

Taken individually, none of the views discussed here can tell us all we need to know about objectivity, though together they provide clues as to what practices in science truly are better than what more limited conceptions of objectivity in science have given us. In addition, taken collectively they provide a consciousness about what features of science and objectivity are important to the feminist programme, though not necessarily what features of feminism are important to science.10

Notes

Introduction See Susan Haack (2003), Defending Science- Within Reason. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books; and Noretta Koertge (ed.) (1998), A House Built on Sand: Exposing Postmodernist Myths about Science. New York: Oxford University Press.

Chapter 1 1.

In this paper, the most common use of the term 'science' is for any structured, systematic inquiry, which most commonly includes mathematics, physics, chemistry and biology (as well as more specific fields such as geology, astronomy and the like). See Elizabeth Anderson (1995), 'Knowledge, human interests, and objectivity in feminist epistemology', Philosophical Topics, 23: 27-44, fn. 2, in which she explains that using 'science' rather than 'inquiry' signifies that the latter is a disciplined, systematic inquiry subject to peer review. However, I am reluctant to apply the term 'science' as widely as Anderson, who includes the humanities, social sciences and economics in her vision of what constitutes science. 2. Martin J. Blaser (1996), 'The bacteria behind ulcers', Scientific American, 274(2): 104-7. 3. Susan Haack calls the received view 'scientism'. See Haack (2003). 4. The level of agreement required is somewhat conventional, even on the received view. 5. Frederick Suppe (1977), The Structure of Scientific Theories. Chicago, IL: University of Illinois Press, p. 12. 6. These are hypotheses that one must assume when trying to confirm a theory. For example, one must assume that the instruments are functioning properly. This kind of background assumption is needed to confirm or support the theory in question, but is not itself'on trial': such assumptions are already accepted by the scientific community, and are not likely to be given up in any event; the central focus is on the theory being confirmed or disconfirmed, not usually its supporting assumptions or background hypotheses.

132 1. 8. 9.

10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15.

16. 17.

18. 19.

20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27.

Notes Carl G. Hempel (1966), The Philosophy ofNatural Science. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, p. 16. Carl G. Hempel (1965), Aspects of Scientific Explanation. New York, NY: The Free Press, p. 91. Rudolph Garnap, an adherent of the view that discovery and justification are separate and distinct, knew all too well that convention plays a role when we determine a theory is confirmed. Convention may well be seen as something mitigated by social values, prejudices or biases, and therefore not entirely congruent with naive conceptions of objectivity in science. See Rudolph Carnap (1936), Testability and meaning'. Philosophy ofScience, 3: 419-71. W.V.O. Qiiine (1953, 1980), From a Logical Point of View. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, p. 41. [Hereafter in text as Quine (1953).] Ibid., p. 42. W.V.O. Quine (1969), 'Epistemology naturalized', in W.V.O. Quine, Ontological Relativity and Other Essays. New York: Columbia University Press, p. 82. Ibid., p. 90. Lynn Nelson (1990), Who Knows?: From Quine to Feminist Empiricism. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, p. 188. Louise Antony (2002), 'Quine as feminist: the radical import of naturalized epistemology', in Louise Antony and Charlotte Witt (eds), A Mind of One's Own, 2nd Edition. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, p. 138. Quine (1953), p. 46. Sandra Harding (1986, 1990), The Science Question in Feminism. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, p. 35. [Hereafter in text as Harding (1986).] Also Helen Longino (1990), Science as Social Knowledge. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, p. 21; and Nelson (1990), p. 62. Thomas S. Kuhn (1962, 1996), The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. [Hereafter in text at Kuhn (1962).] A cautionary note is needed here. There are many ways in which one might understand what Kuhn has said concerning theory, or paradigm, choice, as well as what he could mean by suggesting that competing theories are 'incommensurable5. The controversy surrounding how he ought to be interpreted is only complicated by the fact that he uses the term 'paradigm' in several different ways. Kuhn (1962), p. 113. Ronald Pine (1989), Science and the Human Prospect. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Company, p. 133. Ibid., p. 132. Ibid. Ibid., p. 136. Ibid, pp. 133-4. Ibid., p. 138. Ibid., p. 142.

Notes 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42.

43.

133

Ibid., p. 143. Ibid. Ibid., p. 145. Ibid., p. 146. Ibid. Ibid., p. 147. Ibid, p. 153. Ibid., p. 134. Ibid., p. 147. Kuhn(1962),p.9. Thomas S. Kuhn (1977), The Essential Tension. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, pp. 326-7. Kuhn (1962), p. 207. Ibid., p. 208. Ibid., p. 331. Evelyn Fox Keller (1989),'Feminism and science', in Ann Garry and Marilyn Pearsall (eds), Women, Knowledge and Reality. Boston, MA: Unwin Hyman, Inc., p. 178. Sandra Harding points out that 'more recent studies of the history of science have pursued the logic of Kuhn's argument in directions he did not take'. See Harding (1986), p. 199.

Chapter 2 1.

Catherine MacKinnon (1989), Toward a Feminist Theory of State. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, p. 97. 2. Catherine MacKinnon (1987), Feminism Unmodified. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, p. 50. 3. See Rachel Zuckert (2002), 'MacKinnon's critique of objectivity', in Louise Antony and Charlotte Witt (eds), A Mind of One's Own. Cambridge, MA: Westview Press, 273—301. Zuckert maintains, contrary to the way MacKinnon sometimes talks, that these problems can be resolved within the liberal tradition. 4. MacKinnon (1987), p. 59. 5. Note that her view is not one about essential or natural traits of males and females, but rather about how males and females are socialized to become men and women. On this view, it is our social positions, not our natures or some essential qualities about our bodies and minds, that make us men and women. 6. Certainly one could argue about the scope of gender inequality in our culture, and I think a useful extension of this project would be to explore both the reach and limitations of such inequality.

134 7. 8.

9. 10.

11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24.

25.

26. 27.

Notes MacKinnon (1987), p. 164. Stephen Jay Gould (1996), The Mismeasure of Man. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, p. 304. Burt's original study results were published in 1909 as Cyril Burt (1909), 'Experimental tests of general intelligence', British Journal ojPsychology,3:94-177. Gould (1996), p. 304. Ibid., p. 265. Gould notes that '[it] is scarcely surprising that Arthur Jensen used Sir Cyril's figures as the most important datum in his notorious article (1969) on supposedly inherited and ineradicable differences in intelligence between whites and blacks in America'. Ibid. MacKinnon (1987), p. 164. MacKinnon (1989), p. 88. MacKinnon (1987), p. 54. Ibid, p. 51. MacKinnon should allow for the fact that some men do find powerful women erotic, but she's committed to the idea that most do not. MacKinnon (1987), p.40. MacKinnon (1989), p. 114. Jay M. Cohen, M D (2001), Overdose: The Case Against the Drug Companies. New York, NY: Penguin Putnam, Inc. Ibid., pp. 130-1. Marcia Angell, MD (2000), 'Is academic medicine for sale?', The New England Journal of Medicine, 342(2): 1516-18. Cohen (2001), p. 131. Ibid., p. 133. For a brief discussion regarding why some feminists have argued that the very notion of objectivity should be abandoned see Sandra Harding (1996), 'Rethinking standpoint epistemology', in Evelyn Fox Keller and Helen Longino (eds), Feminism and Science. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, p. 246. MacKinnon (1989), p. 232. Similarly, elsewhere she seems to be critical of the idea that there is an objective reality that can ground our claims about the world; see MacKinnon (1989), pp. 180, 183. Richard Rorty (1991), Objectivity, Relativism, and Truth (Philosophical Papers, Vol. 1). Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. I cannot help but think about just how powerful pharmaceutical companies are in the United States and much of the Western world. They spend literally billions of dollars lobbying politicians and governmental agencies to ensure their drugs can come to the marketplace. Recent facts about the dangers of such drugs as Vioxx and hormone replacement therapy illustrate just how power — in the form of both financial wealth and political clout — can make certain things seem true or objective when further research proves this to be

Notes

135

false. And, even if one could in theory substantiate the safety and efficacy of all Pharmaceuticals that eventually come to be approved by the US Federal Drug Administration, one should still be aware that power is playing a starring role in what gets counted as 'scientifically objective proof that our drugs are both safe and effective.

Chapter 3 1. Evelyn Fox Keller (1985), Reflections on Gender and Science. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, p. 126. 2. Evelyn Fox Keller (1983), A Feeling/or the Organism. New York: W.H. Freeman and Company. 3. See W.R.D. Fairbairn (1952), An Object-Relations Theory of the Personality. New York: Basic Books; Harry Guntrip (1961), Personality Structure and Human Inter-

4. 5. 6.

7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13.

14. 15. 16.

action. New York: International Universities Press; Heinz Kohut (1971), The Analysis of the Self. New York: International Universities Press; D.W. Winnicott (1971), Playing and Reality. New York: Basic Books. Nancy Ghodorow (1978, 1999), The Reproduction of Mothering. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. [Hereafter in text as Ghodorow (1978).] See Harding (1986), p. 131, for a similar discussion of object relations theory. In the preface to the 1999 reprint of Chodorow's book, she remarks that even in co-parented households there is still evidence to suggest that the mother-child relationship will result in some of the very same ideas about masculinity and femininity as the more traditional models. See Chodorow (1999), pp. xv-xviii. Chodorow (1978), p. 69. Ibid., pp. 69-70. Keller (1985), p. 81. For a lengthier description of this theory, see Chodorow (1978), pp. 164-70. On p. 166, she specifically addresses the issues I've highlighted here. Chodorow (1978), p. 167. Ibid., p. 169. See also Chodorow (1978), 1999 Preface, p. viii: 'Mothers, I argue, by virtue of their gender ... experience daughters as, in a certain sense, like them, and sons as, in a certain sense, unlike. Reciprocally, girls and boys themselves appropriate and transform these unconscious maternal communications through their own intrapsychic capacities for fantasy, their own defensive reaction to anxiety and guilt, and their own desires, passions and impulses.* Keller (1985), p. 85. Ibid. Chodorow (1978), p. 71; Keller (1985), p. 86.

136

Notes

17. Keller (1985), p. 86. 18. Chodorow (1978), p. 169; Keller (1985), pp. 88-9. 19. Chodorow (1978), Preface, p. viii. 20. Keller (1985), p. 97. 21. Keller doesn't carefully define what she means by 'authentic', but she commits herself to granting the world what she calls 'independent integrity' (Keller (1985), 117). I take her use of terms like 'authentic' and 'reliable' to be indicative of research or theories that, in some sense, accurately describe real processes of the world. 22. Keller (1985), p. 116. 23. See Helen Longino (1988), 'Science, objectivity and feminist values', Feminist Studies, 14(3), 566, for a discussion and critique of Keller's conception of objectivity. 24. Keller (1985), p. 117. 25. Ibid. 26. Ibid. 27. Ibid., pp. 124-5. 28. See Longino (1990), pp. 204-9, for a similar assessment of Keller's view. 29. Keller (1985), p. 159. 30. Ibid., p. 169. 31. Ibid., pp. 170-1. 32. Keller claims that Watson himself referred to the picture of genetic information flowing from DNA to RNA to protein as the 'central dogma'. 33. Keller (1983), p. 122. 34. Ibid. 35. Sharon Bertsch McGrayne (1993), Nobel Prize Women in Science. New York, NY: Carol Publishing Company, pp. 166-7. 36. Ibid., p. 168. 37. I think it is fitting to note that this is just the sort of'faith' or commitment that Kuhn emphasized as being so prevalent throughout the history of science. 38. Keller (1983), p. 124. 39. Ibid., p. 127. 40. Ibid., p. 130. 41. Ibid, p. 134, originally from Barbara McClintock (1949), ' Mutable loci in maize', Carnegie Institution of Washington Yearbook, 48: 142—3. 42. Keller (1983), p. 135. 43. Ibid. 44. Ibid., p. 140; McGrayne (1993), p. 168. 45. Keller (1983), p. 178. 46. Ibid., p. 179. 47. Ibid., p. 193. 48. Ibid., p. 179. 49. Ibid.

Notes 50. 51.

52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58.

59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66. 67. 68. 69. 70.

71. 72. 73. 74. 75.

76.

137

Ibid., p. 198. Keller (1983), p. 201, quoting from Banesh Hoffmann and Helen Dukas (1973), Albert Einstein, Creator and Rebel. New York: New American Library, p. 222. Keller (1985), p. 165. Ibid., p. 174. Ibid. Ibid., p. 174. Emphasis mine. Ibid., p. 175. Ibid., p. 176. Interestingly, Keller does not suggest revising our parenting structures as a way to fix — at the outset - the development of dynamic autonomy, which would on Keller's view likely lead to the embracing of dynamic objectivity. Keller (1985), pp. 174-5. Ibid., p. 173. Ibid., p. 175. Richard Levins and Richard Lewontin (1985), The Dialectical Biologist. Gambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Stephen Jay Gould (1987), An Urchin in the Storm. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, p. 165. Ibid., p. 167. Keller (1985), pp. 152-3. Ibid., p. 154. Ibid., p. 155. Ibid. Ibid., p. 124. Of course, there are significant debates regarding the type, extent and cause of the (real or perceived) differences in males and females with regard to domination, control and separateness. Hilary Rose (1983), 'Hand, brain and heart: a feminist epistemology for the natural sciences', Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 9(1): 73—90. Ibid., 73. Ibid., 74. Ibid., 75. Again, see Longino (1990), pp. 204-9, for a more detailed critique of Keller's work. Here Longino highlights a tension between Keller's insistence on 'interactionist' models and her endorsement of pluralism in science. The puzzle here is that Keller endorses both dynamic objectivity and the pluralism she takes to be constitutive of 'healthy science', which she claims is one that allows for 'diverse conceptions of mind and nature'. Evelyn Fox Keller (1989), 'Feminism and science', in Evelyn Fox Keller and Helen Longino feds) (1996), Feminism and Science. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, p. 32. Incidentally, it is in this paper that Keller

138

77.

Notes advises against giving up on the notion of objectivity. Here Keller outlines further arguments against MacKinnon's view that objectivity is a myth. It is not clear which views will be challenged, though in Chapter 5 the process of intersubjective criticism is supposed to make sense of some of this. What gets challenged will probably depend on what is viewed as questionable or problematic by researchers who do not share the views of those who endorse what is being challenged.

Chapter 4 1. Sandra Harding (2002), 'Strong objectivity: a response to the new objectivity question', in Janet Kourany (ed.), The Gender of Science. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, pp. 340-51. 2. Sandra Harding (1993), 'Rethinking standpoint epistemology: what is "strong objectivity"?' in Linda Alcoff and Elizabeth Potter (eds), Feminist Epistemologies. New York: Routledge Press, pp. 49—82. Reprinted in Evelyn Fox Keller and Helen Longino (eds) (1996), Feminism and Science. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 235-48. 3. Harding (2002), p. 342. 4. In The Science Question in Feminism, p. 26, Harding calls this view feminist empiricism. In addition, see Harding (2002), pp. 237ff., for her admission that this is a description of something more like naive empiricism, and quite unlike many more sophisticated versions of feminist empiricism. 5. Harding (2002), p. 342. 6. Levins and Lewontin (1985), pp. 166, 167. 7. Ibid., p. 168. 8. Ibid., p. 164. Also, see pp. 171—4 for details regarding the harsh and unpredictable climate of most of Russia, which appears to make it difficult to grow nearly everything. 9. William Broad and Nicholas Wade (1982), Betrayers of the Truth. New York: Simon & Schuster, p. 86. 10. Ibid., p. 191. 11. Levins and Lewontin (1985), p. 195. See this section also for their argument regarding why we should see the Marxism of Lysenko as 'naive', 'antiintellectuaP and 'simplistic', and not representative of a philosophically sophisticated version of Marxism. 12. The 'Biology and Gender Study Group': Athena Beldecos, Sarah Bailey, Scott Gilbert, Karen Hicks, Lori Krenschaft, Nancy Niemczyk, Rebecca Rosenberg, Stephanie Schaertel and Andrew Wedel (1988), 'The importance of the feminist critique for contemporary cell biology', Hypatiay 3(1): 61—76. Reprinted in Janet Kourany (ed.) (2002), The Gender of Science. Upper Saddle

Notes

13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19.

20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26.

139

River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc., pp. 192-203. [Hereafter in text as Study Group (1988).] Study Group (1988), p. 195. Ibid., pp. 193-5 for excerpts from various older textbooks. Ibid., p. 195. Ibid, pp. 195-6. Ibid., p. 196. Harding (1993), p. 238. In addition, the adherence to or preference for master molecule or hierarchical structures, discussed in Chapter 3 of this work, would serve as an example of another widespread cultural bias. Harding (2002), p. 345. Harding (1986), pp. 36-7. Ibid, pp. 197-210. Harding (2002), p. 345. Ibid., p. 350. Harding (1993), p. 244. There are many good sources for this historical account. Here, IVe used the account as found in Frank J. Ascione, Duane M. Kirking, Caroline M. Gaither and Lynda S. Welage (2001), 'Historical overview of generic medication policy', Journal of American Pharmaceutical Association, 41: 567—77. The story of

27. 28. 29.

30. 31.

the Synthroid controversy is on page 572. [Hereafter in text as Ascione, et al. (2001).] Ascione, et al. (2001), 572. Journal of the American Medical Association (2002), 287: 78-84. (Policy Statement, no author listed.) In researching the Synthroid case, I found that many drug tests are not done in the double-blind fashion so highly touted by scientists as the factor that makes their research objective. Harding (1993), p. 244. Harding (2002), p. 351.

Chapter 5 1. 2. 3. 4.

Longino (1990), p. 67. Ibid., p. 68. Ibid. (1990), pp. 68-9. Elsewhere, Longino gives a comprehensive account of social knowledge that she thinks will be applicable to most or all types of knowledge, though she does not think her account has to be universalizable to all forms of knowledge. In addition, Longino claims that 'identifying some form of knowledge that is

140

5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14.

15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26.

Motes not social... has no implications for [her central arguments about the social nature of knowledge]'. See Helen Longino (2002), The Fate of Knowledge, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, pp. 209-11. Longino (2002), p. 99. Ibid., p. 101. Ibid, p. 100. Ibid, p. 101. Ibid, p. 102. Ibid. Ibid, p. 103. Ibid. Ibid, pp. 103-4. Longino's mentions the story of cold fusion, which was once claimed to have been achieved, then denounced when its proponents could not replicate their experiment. Longino (2002), p. 105. Ibid., p. 122. Longino (1990), p. 231. Ibid., p. 216. Ibid. Ibid., p. 69. Emphasis mine. Ibid., p. 74. Sensitive to the practical limitations of criticism, Longino allows that it cannot go on indefinitely, nor should it proceed if it becomes 'repetitive and fixed*, or does not develop into a fruitful research programme. Longino (1990), p. 79. Longino (1990), p. 165. Here, Longino is specifically referring to the reflexivity recommended by Harding. Ibid., p. 80. Gerald Schatten and Heide Schatten (1983), 'The energetic egg'. TheSciences, 23(5): 28-34. Note that the article was written for laypeople. Paul R. Gross, (1998), 'Bashful eggs, macho sperm and Tonypandy', in Noreta Koertge (ed.), A House Built on Sand: Exposing Postmodernist Myths About

27. 28.

29. 30. 31.

Science. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Longino (1990), p. 79. See Harding (1986), ch. 4, for a brief overview of the feminist literature focused on revealing sexism and androcentrism in science (specifically biology and social science). See also Longino's discussion regarding research into sex differences and the often sexist assumptions that underlie such research, in Longino (1990), ch. 6. Much attention was given to biology, medicine and anthropology, though (alleged) sexism in other sciences has been addressed, as well. Longino (1990), p. 80. Personal correspondence with the author, 23 July 2003. Emphasis mine.

Notes 32. 33. 34. 35. 36.

37. 38. 39.

40. 41. 42. 43. 44.

141

Gould (1996), p. 115. Ibid, p. 124. Longino (1990), p. 107. For the original papers published based on the 1966 Man-the-Hunter symposium, see Richard B. Lee and Irven Devore (eds) (1966), Man the Hunter. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. In both the man-the-hunter and woman-the-gatherer accounts, conclusions are drawn that go beyond the development of tools, as these accounts are often used to explain brain development, social arrangements, etc. Longino (1990), p. 107. Hartmut Thieme (1997), 'Lower Paleolithic hunting spears from Germany*. Nature, 385; 807. Longino (1990), pp. 1078. For more comprehensive information on the woman-the-gatherer accounts, see Nancy Tanner and Adrienne Zihlman (1976), * Women in evolution, Part I', Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 1(3): 585-608. Longino (1990), p. 108. Ibid, p. 109. Ibid. Ibid., p. 111. Ibid., p. 76.

Chapter 6 1. See Chapter 2 above. 2. MacKinnon (1989), p. 183. Emphasis mine. 3. MacKinnon isn't alone in this claim. See Kim Lane Scheppele (1991;. *The reasonable woman'. The Responsive Community, Rights and Responsibilities,

l(4):36ff. 4. Of course, not everything females experience will be experienced by males, and vice versa, but admitting (perhaps vast) differences in experiences hardly substantiates the positing of distinct realities. 5. Keller (1985), p. 125. 6. Of course, we are often told by privileged (usually white) middle-class people what poor or marginalized people 'really' need or want, but this is not the same thing as what they actually need or want. 7. Longino (1990), 68. 8. I'm thinking here of market research and polling data. 9. This relates to the concern raised about social and financial power in Chapter 2, as those people or institutions with power can prevent the transformation from occurring.

142 10.

Notes Sandra Harding makes this point quite aptly in the title to her book, The Science Question in Feminism (and not The Feminist Question in Science), to indicate that

feminists do not always need to be in the business of saying why or how feminism is good for or useful to science, but rather how science affects the interests offeminism.

Bibliography

Alcoff, Linda and Potter, Elizabeth, (eds) (1993), Feminist Epistemologies. New York: Routledge Press. Anderson, Elizabeth (Fall 1995),'Knowledge, human interests, and objectivity in feminist epistemology', Philosophical Topics, 23: 27—44. Angell, Marcia, M.D. (May 2000), 'Is academic medicine for sale?', The Mew England Journal of Medicine, 342(2): 1516-18. Antony, Louise (2002), 'Quine as feminist: the radical import of naturalized epistemology', as printed in Antony, Louise and Witt, Charlotte, feds), A Mind of One's Own, 2nd Edition. Boulder, GO: Westview Press, 185-225. and Witt, Charlotte, (eds) (2002), A Mind of One's Own, 2nd Edition. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Ascione, Frank J., Kirking, Duane M., Gaither, Caroline M. and Welage, Lynda S. (July 2001), 'Historical overview of generic medication policy', Journal of the American Pharmaceutical Association, 41: 567-77.

The Biology and Gender Study Group: Athena Beldecos, Sarah Bailey, Scott Gilbert, Karen Hicks, Lori Krenschaft, Nancy Niemczyk, Rebecca Rosenberg, Stephanie Schaertel and Andrew Wedel, (Spring 1988), 'The importance of the feminist critique for contemporary cell biology', Hypatia, 3(1): 61-76., as reprinted in Kourany, Janet (2002), The Gender of Science. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc., pp. 192-203. Blaser, Martin J. (1996), "The bacteria behind ulcers', Scientific American, 274(2): 104-7. Broad, William and Wade, Nicholas (1982), Betrayers ofthe Truth. New York: Simon & Schuster. Burt, Cyril, (1909), 'Experimental tests of general intelligence', British Journal of Psychology, $: 94-177. Carnap, Rudolph, (1936), 'Testability and meaning', Philosophy of Science, 3:419-71. Chodorow, Nancy (1978, 1999), The Reproduction of Mothering. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Cohen, Jay M., M.D. (2001), Overdose: The Case Against the Drug Companies. New York, NY: Penguin Putnam, Inc. Fairbairn, W.R.D. (1952), An Object-Relations Theory of the Personality. New York: Basic Books.

144

Bibliography

Gould, Stephen Jay (1987), An Urchin in the Storm. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. (1996), The Mismeasure of Man. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. Gross, Paul R. (1998), 'Bashful eggs, macho sperm and Tonypandy', as printed in Koertge, Noreta, (ed.) (1998), A House Built on Sand: Exposing Postmodernist Myths about Science. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 59—70. Guntrip, Harry (1961), Personality Structure and Human Interaction. New York: International Universities Press. Haack, Susan (2003), Defending Science - Within Reason. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books. Harding, Sandra (1986, 1990), TheScience Question in Feminism. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. (1993), 'Rethinking standpoint epistemology: what is "strong objectivity"?' in Alcoff, Linda and Potter, Elizabeth (eds), Feminist Epistemologies. New York: Routledge Press, pp. 49-82. Reprinted in Keller, Evelyn Fox and Longino, Helen, (eds) (1996), Feminism and Science. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 235-48. (1995), 'Strong objectivity: a response to the new objectivity question', in Kourany, Janet (ed.), The Gender of Science. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, pp. 340-51. Hempel, Carl G. (1965), Aspects of Scientific Explanation. New York, NY: The Free Press. (1966), The Philosophy ofNatural Science. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Hoffmann, Banesh and Dukas, Helen (1973), Albert Einstein, Creator and Rebel. New York: New American Library. Journal of the American Medical Association (2002), 287: 78-84. (Policy Statement, no author listed.) Keller, Evelyn Fox (1983), A Feeling for the Organism. New York: W.H. Freeman and Company. i 1985), Reflections on Gender and Science. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. (1989), 'Feminism and science', as printed in Garry, Ann and Pearsall, Marilyn, eds. (eds) Women, Knowledge and Reality. Boston, MA: Unwin Hyman, Inc., pp. 175-88. Reprinted in Keller, Evelyn Fox and Longino, Helen (eds) 1996), Feminism and Science. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 28-40. and Longino, Helen, (eds) (1996), Feminism and Science. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Koertge, Noreta (ed.), A House Built on Sand: Exposing Postmodernist Myths about Science. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 59—70. Kohut, Heinz (1971), The Analysis of the Self New York: International Universities Press. Kourany, Janet (ed.) (2002), The Gender ojScience. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Bibliography

145

Kuhn, Thomas S. (1962, 1996), The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. (1977), The Essential Tension. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press. Lee, Richard B. and Devore, Irven, (eds) (1966), Man the Hunter. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Levins, Richard and Lewontin, Richard (1985), The Dialectical Biologist. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Longino, Helen (1988), 'Science, objectivity and feminist values', Feminist Studies, 14 (3): 561-74. (1990), Science as Social Knowledge. Princeton: Princeton University Press. (2002), The Fate ofKnowledge. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. McClintock, Barbara (1949), 'Mutable loci in maize', Carnegie Institution of Washington Yearbook, 48:142-3. McGrayne, Sharon Bertsch (1993), Nobel Prize Women in Science. New York, NY: Carol Publishing Company. MacKinnon, Catherine (1987), Feminism Unmodified. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. (1989), Toward a Feminist Theory ofSlate. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Nelson, Lynn (1990), Who Knows?: From Quine to Feminist Empiricism. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press. Pine, Ronald (1989), Science and the Human Prospect. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Company. Quine, W.V.O. (1953, 1980), From a Logical Point of View. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. (1969), 'Epistemology naturalized', in Quine, W.V.O. (1969), Ontological Relativity and Other Essays. New York: Columbia University Press. (1969), Ontological Relativity and Other Essays. New York: Columbia University Press. Rorty, Richard (1991), Objectivity, Relativism, and Truth (Philosophical Papers, Volume 1). Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. Rose, Hilary (1983), 'Hand, brain and heart: a feminist epistemology for the natural sciences', Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 9(1): 73-90. Schatten, Gerald and Schatten, Heide (1983), 'The energetic egg'. The Sciences, 23 (5): 28-34. Scheppele, Kim Lane (1991), 'The reasonable woman'. The Responsive Community, Rights and Responsibilities, 1 (4): 36-47. Suppe, Frederick (1977), The Structure of Scientific Theories. Chicago, IL: University of Illinois Press. Tanner, Nancy and Zihlman, Adrienne (1976), 'Women in evolution, Part I'. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, II (3): 585-608. Thieme, Hartmut (1997), 'Lower Paleolithic hunting spears from Germany'. Nature, 385: 807-10.

146

Bibliography

Winnicott, D.W. (1971), Playing and Reality. New York: Basic Books. Zuckert, Rachel (2002), 'MacKinnon's critique of objectivity', in Antony, Louise and Witt, Charlotte, (eds) (2002), A Mind of One's Own. Cambridge, MA: Westview Press, pp. 273-301.

Index

analytic/synthetic distinction 12 analytic statements 12-13 Antony, Louise M. 14 Aristotelian/Eudoxian cosmological model 18 autonomy 47-50, 56-7, 118 Boots/Knoll Pharmaceutical 74-5, 77-8 Broca, Paul 103 Burt, Sir Cyril 30-1, 39, 71,95-6, 127 caring labour, see also nurturing 46 Chodorow, Nancy 45—6 Cohen, M.D., Jay S. 37 confirmation (of theories) 7—12,29 context of discovery 7—9, 16, 20—4, 44 context ofjustification, see also justification (of theories) 7—9, 20-4 Copernican Revolution 17-22 Copernicus, Nicolaus 19-20 criticism (from outside science) 110-11 criticism, response to 104-6 detachment 56 dogma (of science) 51-3,57, 59,64-6,

evidence limitations of use 12-16, 23? 25 role in received view 7—9 female view, see also male view 42, 115 feminist critique 1-2,11-12,24-5,41, 70,78,102,113, 127 groundwork for 11-23 Feyerabend, Paul 10,65 Flax, Jane 45 fraud 30-2,38 gender identity 46 genetic dissocation 52 genetic transposition 49-53, 91, 103, 119 Gould, Stephen Jay 31, 58, 134n. 10 Gross, Paul R. 97-8 H. pylon, see also Helibactor pylon 8 Harding, Sandra 3, 66-8, 70-4, 76-83,93-4,117-18,122 Helibactor pylon, see also H. pylori 8 Hempel, Carl G. 9 holism, see also wholism 13

influence on feminist theory 12,15 influence on science 7,9, 11, 16-19, 120 22-4, 26, 29, 33-4, 37,62-3, dominance 32 65,67-8,76,79,93,110,114, domination 33, 35, 42, 48, 56, 58-61, 116-18,121,123 114,121 intelligence 30, 32, 71, 74,94, 103 Dong, Dr Betty 75-7 and brain size 103 dynamic objectivity, see also objectivity, Intelligence Quotient (IQ) 30-1 dynamic 3,44,47-50, 54-8, intersubjective criticism 62, 88, 93, 61-4,93, 111, 114-17,122,125 95-101,103-9,111,120-3,125

148

Index

justification (of theories), see also context ofjustification 7—10, 15—16, 21-24,44,63,73,79,87,90 Keller, Evelyn Fox 3, 24,44-59, 61-4,93,114-17,122 Kepler, Johannes 20 Koertge, Noretta 97-8 Kuhn, Thomas S. 2,10,15-17,19-26, 28,65,72,119,123 Lamarckism 67 Longino, Helen 4,82,84-102,106-7, 109,118-21,123 Lysenko, T.D. 67-8, 78, 138n. 11 MacKinnon, Catherine 2-3, 27-35, 38-43,58,77,111-13,121 male view, see also female view 27—28, 42,115 man-the-hunter, see also woman-thegatherer 104-5, 141 n. 35, 36, 39 marginalized 73,80-1,117-18,122-3 Marshall, Dr Barry 8 master molecule models, see also pacemaker concept 51 - 2 , 59, 103, 114, 139n. 19 McGlintock, Barbara 44-5, 49-58, 60-1,63-4,88,91-2,114-15,119,

123-4 Mendelian genetics 67—8 motion of the planets, see also planetary motion 17—21 Nelson, Lynn Hankinson 13 network (of ideas or beliefs) 1-5, 11, 61,63,84,94,111, 114, 117, 123-4 neutral position/posture 27 neutral(ity) 21,66-8, 72, 79, 110 nurturing, see also caring labor 46 object relations theory 45,48, 57 objective 2-4, 6-7, 9-12, 16, 23-8, 34-5,38-40,42-3,46,48, 49, 55, 57,62-3,65-6, 77, 79, 83,93,99, 100, 106-7,109-13, 116,121-5 view 28, 34, 35,42-3

objectivism 66-8, 71-2, 76, 78,81 objectivity in science 1,6, 10, 12, 25-6, 36,45, 64,83, 94,96,102,109,120-1, 126 dynamic, see also dynamic objectivity 3,44,47-50,54-8, 61-4,93, 111,114-17,122,125 maximize/maximizing 1,4, 76, 79, 84,92,94,97,111,121,124-5 on a continuum 99, 109, 124 static 50, 55-7, 62, 111, 114-15, 117 strong 3, 65-6, 68, 72-4, 76-83, 117,122 weak 66-8,70-2,76,78-9 pacemaker concept, see also master molecule models 51—2,59-60, 103,114,139n. 19 paradigm 16, 18-19, 23 peer review 4, 80, 84-5, 123 pharmaceutical company (ies) 37—8, 75-6, 78 pharmaceutical research 36, 39, 76 Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) 76 planetary motion, see also motion of the planets 17-21 positivist 12,22 power 3, 26-36, 39,41-4, 59,68, 76-7,82,89, 111-14,117,121, 124 problem choice(s) 11, 16, 122 problem of induction 66 profit-driven science 36, 38, 75 Ptolemaic system 19—21 Ptolemy 19-20 Py thagoreanism 17—18 Quine, W.V.O. 2, 10, 12,13, 15, 23-5,28,65,72,123 rape 40,111-12 realities, distinct or split 111-13, 141n. 4

4, 39—41,

149

Index received view (of science) 8—10,13, 15,21-3,26-8,38,42,44,60, 66-7, 75, 131n. 3,4 reproductive models, see also sperm sagas 69-70 Rose, Hilary 60-1 Schatten, Gerald and Heide 97 science as contingently social 84-5,91,93, 98, 119-21 as necessarily social 84-5,88-92, 98,119-21 caring 60—1 norms of 6-7,68,86-7,89-90, 120 transformation of 57—8, 60 scientific community 9, 30-1, 38, 53, 67-8,71,75,78,81-2,84-7, 89-92,94-102,107-9,119-20, 123, 125,133 scientific method 2,4, 7, 38,62,66-7, 79, 114,117,124 observation 89-90, 119 quality of research 7 reasoning 88-90, 119 self-reflection 3-4, 63-6,80,99,109, 111,117-18,121-5 sexism 10-11,97,100,158,140n. 28, 29

sperm sagas, see also repoductive models 69-71, 73-4, 78,89-90, 97-8, 100, 102-3 standpoint epistemology 28, 34, 66, 117 standpoint theorists 118 subjective observers 26 subordination 32,59 synthetic statements 12 Synthroid 74-5, 77-8, 80 theory-ladenness 16 transformative criticism 106-9, 123

99, 101-2,

ulcers 8 underdetermination (of theories) 24 value judgments

12,

9-10,21

Warren, Dr Robin 8 wealth 35-7,39,71 wealthy person, perspective of 118 wheat Soviet production of 67—8 vernalization of 67 wholism, see also holism 13 woman-the-gatherer, see also man-the-hunter 104-5,141n. 35, 36,39