Gender does not appear to influence trust of science. Two Australian studies, Critchley and Turney (2004) and Yates and Chandler (2000) found that anti-scientific and anti-intellectual beliefs were unrelated to gender.
"scientific practise is a social activity, subject to the biases and prejudices of the scientists. In contrast, the scientific methods of gathering empirical data to refute hypotheses, and using statistical methods to determine statistical significance, are perfectly sound." -- Restructure
As discussed Thursday, claims that the scientific community is sexist are not baseless. However, my feeling is that, as Cordelia Fine suggests, the problem is not with science, but with the ways the science is presented.
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Interesting side note: Although Yates and Chandler found that anti-science beliefs were not related to gender, New Age beliefs were.
I wonder if this says anything about women's ability to reconcile New Age beliefs and science beliefs?
copied from LJ:
I dunno, I haven't noticed any particular anti-science bias on the part of feminists myself.
Fair enough, I don't have much to do with feminist communities or anything else these days, but I don't recall much anti-science sentiment when I did. People's reactions was usually more or less "Oh. Okay then, fair enough." to studies citing whatever. Or they'd pick apart the methodology, which is fair enough.
All anecdotal as hell of course :)
I find that there is a ton of anti-science sentiment out there, and a huge amount of scientific illiteracy. It's appalling. Is it really any worse on those two sites than anywhere else on the internet? (Or for that matter, in my classroom? *cries*)
Again, I find myself agreeing with astrogeek. In my experience, a large number of feminists, do not understand sciences (especially math and natural sciences), and sometimes are quite openly hostile to it.
I remember, a militant feminist lady at an Ivy League School once telling me she does not care about math because it is "white male science", and "a tool of oppression". Duh!
Your post title, "Feminism and Anti-Science", is a distorted framing of what my post was about. I did not suggest that there was a relationship between feminism and anti-science. I did not say that there was a "culture" of anti-science. I almost wrote "culture" in the second-last sentence, but I decided it was inaccurate and wrote "memes" instead. I do not think that anti-science is endemic within feminism.
Honestly, I do not belong in the same paragraph as the other two articles you linked. These two authors refer to "the feminists" as if feminists are a monolith of science-hating women. As shown in my post, there were criticisms from female and feminist scientists, though as commenters.
I used to be a digg'er at digg.com, and sometimes there were articles about studies that showed gender differences which favoured females. Many/most of the digg commenters there would also reject the study because they did not like the results, and accuse the researchers of being women. If one+ of the researchers turned out to be a man, they would say that the man lacked testicles. They would claim that the studies were biased and motivated by political correctness, simply because the results supported a liberal worldview.
Of course, I'm less likely to make an angry blog post about digg commenters' scientific illiteracy and self-delusion, as I eventually found out that digg'ers were not worth the effort.
If I did make such a post, I doubt that someone would link to it and title the post "Computer Nerds and Anti-Science", as there is no stereotype associating computer nerds with anti-science, unlike the stereotype about women being bad at science.
There is a great blog called Racialicious, which discusses race, racism, and pop culture, and it is explicitly against "uncritical celebrations of diversity and multiculturalism" and instead it "confront[s] head-on the complex issues surrounding race and racism". The main author is the wonderful Carmen Van Kerckhove, and most of the contributors are women of colour who are feminists in addition to being antiracists. This blog is very much interested in studies about ethnic and racial differences. Additionally, when James Watson was in the news for his racist comments, Carmen interviewed an academic in the relevant field, Dr. Joseph L. Graves, about Watson's comments. I know that the structure of DNA has basically nothing to do with the topic of race and intelligence, but there were many scientifically illiterate racists on the internet that believed Watson was being condemned because of political correctness and liberal censorship. Instead of dismissing science as a whole, Carmen confronted the issue head-on, which benefitted those readers who were less scientifically literate. I loved her for that, and I think this is the right attitude towards understanding topics like race and gender.
@Restructure!: hm. You're right. When I originally wrote the post, there were four paragraphs, and I thought it got too long, so I cut about half of it. It looks like I cut out the part that really made it clear how different your post was from the other two accusations.
My apologies - I certainly don't think any of my readers thought that your post was suggesting that feminism was anti-science. You did choose the word "memes." I'll edit the post to indicate your response.
Thanks for your thoughtful comments!
@piterburg: I want to clarify that I did NOT mean that feminists are anti-science. I think that American culture (as noted at the end of the first link posted, at "Restructure") has a lot of anti-science in it, or at least has a very poor understanding of science. I don't honestly think that feminists are any better/worse than anyone else.
copied from LJ:
i would add that the application of that "knowledge" needs to be given some context in PoS... a lot of people take covariance for causation when they apply science. science is a form of intersubjectivity, perhaps the one with the most predictive power. but that doesn't mean that it is invincible methodologically either...
It's too bad if it is the case that there is an anti-science meme in contemporary feminism, as I believe that science can help feminism. I do believe that much of the problem women have in the science and engineering professions is due to the fact that these positions were originally created and defined by men. I think if women were the gender that originally played the dominant role in the creation of science that it might be structured differently.
"I know that the structure of DNA has basically nothing to do with the topic of race and intelligence, but there were many scientifically illiterate racists on the internet that believed Watson was being condemned because of political correctness and liberal censorship."
Not to go off topic but then you have a very poor idea of what race is. There is much more to race than just skin color. You have no proof, just like "racist," to prove that Watson was being coy about race and intelligence. Do you honestly believe that every race evolves the same? Just in my Anatomy class my doctor talked about different cartilage formation between different races of Man.
But yes, Feminism is anti-science. Its basic tenet is social constructionism (which hasn't been proved to exist). Feminist downplay, or deny depending on how "Feminist" they are, biological differences. If the admit it, it destroys there argument that men and women are the same, thus should be treated the same.
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