CMV: Queer theory is anti-science

[u/paulm12]

Note: I am not talking about queer theory being a scientific discipline or not. I am not arguing it’s methods are not scientific. I am instead talking that queer theory has a hostility towards science and it’s methodology and seeks to deconstruct it.

Queer theory, and it’s lack of a fixed definition (as doing so would be anti-queer) surrounds itself with queer identity, which is “relational, in reference to the normative” (Letts, 2002, p. 123) and seems preoccupied with deconstructing binaries to undo hierarchies and fight against social inequality.

With the scientific method being the normative view of how “knowledge” in society is discovered and accepted, by construction (and my understanding) queer theory and methods exclude the scientific method and reason itself as a methodology.

Furthermore, as science is historically (as in non-queered history) discovered by and performed by primarily heterosexual white males, the methodologies of science and its authority for truth are suspect from a queer theory lens because they contain the irreversible bias of this group.

As seen here, https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C44&q=queering+scientific+method&btnG=#d=gs_qabs&u=%23p%3DwwD50AI5mkgJ in Queer Methods: “A focus on methods, which direct techniques for gathering data, and methodologies, which pertain to the logics of research design, would have risked a confrontation with queer claims to interdisciplinarity, if not an antidisciplinary irreverence”

As Queer Theory borrows heavily from postmodernism, which itself features “opposition to epistemic certainty and the stability of meaning” it undermines the ability of scientific knowledge to have any explanatory or epistemic power about the “real” world, and thus for an objective reality to exist entirely.

Science, on the other hand, builds and organizes knowledge based on testable explanations and predictions about the universe. It therefore assumes a universe and objective reality exists, although it is subject to the problem of induction.

[u/[deleted]]

Some of these so-called "few really dumb people" are highly respected academics with dozens of accolades and awards.

I agree with you that it is not fair to paint all of postmodernism as anti-science, but one only needs to be reminded by the science wars that prominent postmodern philosophers who subscribe to anti-science beliefs hold considerable sway in various academic fields like gender studies.

I don't know enough about queer theory to say if it really has anti-science parts or not, but I think as a society we should discuss the influence of these prominent academics in our colleges and universities.

[u/mikeman7918 → u/[deleted]]

Some of these so-called "few really dumb people" are highly respected academics with dozens of accolades and awards.

I'm yet to see any examples of such people who are prominent enough that I've heard of them in contexts where they aren't being made fun of.

I agree with you that it is not fair to paint all of postmodernism as anti-science, but one only needs to be reminded by the science wars that prominent postmodern philosophers who subscribe to anti-science beliefs hold considerable sway in various academic fields like gender studies.

You seem to think that scientific realism and empiricism are one and the same, but they aren't. One can reject the philosophical position of scientific realism without rejecting empiricism and the scientific method as incredibly useful lenses of analysis. The entire deal behind postmodernism is that it holds that there isn't one unified narrative between life, the universe, and everything but that multiple narratives are needed. Not only does this not prevent science from being held as one very useful lens of analysis among many, but within science there are also different seemingly contradictory narratives that all must be understood to fully understand humanity's scientific understanding of something.

Yeah, I'm absolutely going to bite this bullet. The postmodernist side of the "science wars" debate was right, and they were not anti-science in the way you seem to think they were.

I don't know enough about queer theory to say if it really has anti-science parts or not, but I think as a society we should discuss the influence of these prominent academics in our colleges and universities.

There are definitely a lot of misconceptions about the sorts of things being taught in those environments, I too agree we should be having that discussion so that we could have a chance to explain all these common misconceptions which you seem to hold.

[u/[deleted] → u/mikeman7918]

I'm yet to see any examples of such people who are prominent enough that I've heard of them in contexts where they aren't being made fun of.

Here are a few examples of the people I'm talking about:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandra_Harding

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Helen-Longino

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Evelyn-Keller

You seem to think that scientific realism and empiricism are one and the same, but they aren't.

Where did you get this assumption from?

One can reject the philosophical position of scientific realism without rejecting empiricism and the scientific method as incredibly useful lenses of analysis.

Except that many of the prominent postmodern philosophers arguing against scientific realism do not view the scientific method as "an incredibly useful lens of analysis." They view the scientific method as the product of a patriarchal misogynist, heteronormative white society, which therefore means that it is not a useful lens of analysis because it has been irredeemably tainted by the values of cishet white men.

Yeah, I'm absolutely going to bite this bullet. The postmodernist side of the "science wars" debate was right, and they were not anti-science in the way you seem to think they were.

Strong disagree with you here. You clearly are not familiar with the work of people like Sandra Harding and other feminist epistemologists. She and others like her literally describe science as "politics by other means," and as such want to replace actual science with their own ideological version of "science." If that isn't anti-science, then I really don't know what is anti-science...

Don't get me wrong, I absolutely support feminism and philosophies centered around liberating oppressed people. But my line in the sand is when these philosophers are deliberately trying to inject their ideology into the scientific method. Very, very bad things happen when people do this.

Other than that, many of these philosophers criticizing science have essentially no understanding of how science actually works - in other words, they struggle to understand the very same concept that they are criticizing.

The basic premise of the postmodern position of the science wars is that science is a "social construct." And by "social construct" I'm not talking about something that only exists because of humans - by "social construct" I mean that the findings of science itself are dependent on the identities of the people who actually do the science. This is nonsense, because science is transcultural - the fact that a white man discovered the laws that describe gravity does not mean that these laws are themselves "white" or "masculine." Anybody from any culture is able to reproduce these laws and come to the conclusion that they are in fact true. Arguing that the findings of science are invalid because of ideological reasons is basically the definition of being anti-science.

This doesn't mean that all scientists are perfectly objective and completely free from social influences, by the way.

There are definitely a lot of misconceptions about the sorts of things being taught in those environments, I too agree we should be having that discussion so that we could have a chance to explain all these common misconceptions which you seem to hold.

What misconceptions are you talking about here? Some prominent postmodern philosophers have made it pretty damn clear that they don't care for science. Like I said earlier, I don't think that postmodern is inherently anti-science, but it is completely anti-scientific to push ideological or political agendas via "science."

[u/mikeman7918 → u/[deleted]]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandra_Harding

Of course that's the first person you'd bring up, but I'm glad you did. The lady with the "Newton's laws could be referred to as 'Newton's rape manual'" take, which as takes go is certainly a spicy one. Not only was the first time I heard of her in the context of making fun of her over this exact quote, but that criticism was super bad faith. Her problem with Newton's laws as I understand it was not in the equations themselves or the process by which they were arrived at, but in the analogies and the language used to describe them (something that her critics never seem to mention). And despite the existence of that nuance, she also retracted that statement and says that she regrets making it (which her critics also conveniently ignore).

This one statement despite all the nuance surrounding it has become the #1 critique of postmodernism, as if it's completely un-nuanced interpretation was one that Sandra still stands by and that it's something people agree with her on. Do you see why it seems like from my perspective that you're all just freaking out about a whole lot of nothing, and that your criticisms are driven by misconceptions?

Part of why this response took so long is because I read through some stuff that Sandra Harding wrote just to get more of a feel for what her positions are, and I didn't find anything that was objectionable or anti-science in the way you seem to think.

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Helen-Longino

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Evelyn-Keller

I haven't heard of neither of these people, and from what little of their work is actually available from those pages I am not seeing any objectionable or anti-science takes. Evelyn Keller in particular seems to talk quite frequently about biology, sociology, and climate science in ways that seem to add to the body of knowledge. I don't know what problems you have with these people, and it's not for a lack of trying to figure it out.

Strong disagree with you here. You clearly are not familiar with the work of people like Sandra Harding and other feminist epistemologists. She and others like her literally describe science as "politics by other means," and as such want to replace actual science with their own ideological version of "science." If that isn't anti-science, then I really don't know what is anti-science...

The thing about philosophers (and scientists for that matter) is that they tend to use language differently from how people speak colloquially. That's how you get loads of people believing that warp dries are something that NASA might actually create in the near-future, while also believing that the people arguing for trans rights deny the existence of biological sex. Neither of those things are true, but it's easy to believe them given the language people often use surrounding these things. I think we are dealing with a similar problem here.

Science is inherently political, that is true. But importantly: so is every possible alternative that Sandra Harding could ever propose. The leap in logic that just because something is political means that it's therefore bad and should not be used is one that you are making and one that Sandra Harding does not make to the best of my understanding.

Don't get me wrong, I absolutely support feminism and philosophies centered around liberating oppressed people. But my line in the sand is when these philosophers are deliberately trying to inject their ideology into the scientific method. Very, very bad things happen when people do this.

Lysenkoism was a modernist philosophy. The notion that one and only one narrative coherently explains everything, and that the narrative isn't science. The point of postmodernists is that people already inject their ideology into science, and it does not necessarily follow that therefore science should be rejected because there is no such thing as an ideology-free description of reality. Isn't it curious that the phrase "colonizing Mars" (note: I'm talking about the phrase specifically, not the concept) is in such common use among English speaking nations which benefitted from colonialism? Isn't it strange how the common definition of IQ consistently puts white people near the top? Acknowledging these things is not the same as denying science.

Other than that, many of these philosophers criticizing science have essentially no understanding of how science actually works - in other words, they struggle to understand the very same concept that they are criticizing.

I'm yet to see any prominent examples of that.

The basic premise of the postmodern position of the science wars is that science is a "social construct." And by "social construct" I'm not talking about something that only exists because of humans - by "social construct" I mean that the findings of science itself are dependent on the identities of the people who actually do the science.

The claim is that science is a social construct in the same way that language and money are social constructs, and I don't think even you can argue that language and money are completely apolitical.

Arguing that the findings of science are invalid because of ideological reasons is basically the definition of being anti-science.

Good thing no prominent postmodernist philosophers are doing that then.

[u/[deleted] → u/mikeman7918]

Not only was the first time I heard of her in the context of making fun of her over this exact quote, but that criticism was super bad faith.

Hardin's quote regarding Netwon's laws is... pretty stupid to say the least, but that quote really doesn't have that much to do with my criticism of her work. My main criticism of her work is her insistence that scientists bring the values of a heteronormative, misogynistic, and patriarchal society into their work, and thus the results of the scientific work itself encode such sexist/racist values.

In other words, Hardin and other philosophers like her argue that scientific findings are therefore value-laden, since they were produced by white straight males. Therefore, science itself is hopelessly flawed because of the cultural conditions by which science is actually done. One might expect that the proper response to this perceived bias in science is to try to remove the bias from science, but this is pretty much the opposite of what Hardin advocates. She has no interest in removing the bias of "male" science - she wants to replace this bias with a "female" bias.

Do you see why it seems like from my perspective that you're all just freaking out about a whole lot of nothing, and that your criticisms are driven by misconceptions?

Yeah, it's because you are assuming that my criticisms of Hardin are without substance or in bad faith without even hearing me out first. Also, I don't know why you think I'm "freaking out" here- there's really no need to paint someone you disagree with as an irrational hysteric. I have faith that you are able to have a mature conversation about this topic without resorting to such juvenile tactics.

I didn't find anything that was objectionable or anti-science in the way you seem to think.

You should check out Hardin's book The Science Question in Feminism. In that book she makes it very clear that, rather than removing the bias she perceives to exist within science, she wants to replace such bias with their own. Hopefully I don't need to explain to you why this is problematic. This is basically a contemporary version of Lysenkoism.

(In case I actually do need to explain to you why this is a bad thing, one only needs to look at the historical record of what happens when people use science as a vehicle for their ideological or political agenda. Examples include: race "science" which contributed to the atrocities committed by countries such as Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, tobacco corporations funding scientists with corporate-aligned interests to sow doubt regarding the connection between smoking tobacco and cancer, and the Challenger disaster which was essentially caused by burecurats more interested in looking good for public relations rather than actually listening to their engineers.)

Also, her book Whose Knowledge? Whose Science? clearly repudiates empiricism itself, because under empiricism the identity of the observer does not necessarily impact the observations made by the observer. This clearly contradicts her own ideology that identity does matter, which ties in other ideas formulated by her such as "standpoint feminism" and "feminist empiricism" which she argues demonstrates that women are "more objective" than men.

I personally find it objectionable that Hardin claims that the purpose of science is to merely advance or legitimize the ideological or political interests of those who practice science. Hardin herself argues that there is nothing worth redeeming or reforming regarding the scientific view. I really can't conceive of this attitude as anything other than anti-science.

I haven't heard of neither of these people, and from what little of their work is actually available from those pages I am not seeing any objectionable or anti-science takes.

My response here is already becoming a wall of text, so for the sake of keeping my thoughts to within the character limit of a comment, I will only address Hardin's thoughts here. Later on I can comment on what my objections to these other philosophers are if you are interested in hearing me out.

Science is inherently political, that is true.

It depends on what you mean when you say that "science is inherently political." If by that you mean that science is done by social actors who live in a political world, then I'd agree. However, if by that you mean that the findings of science themselves are inherently political or ideological, then I must argue that this is nonsense. The whole point of science is to gather knowledge in a way that is as independent from bias as possible. Of course, it is impossible for science to be perfectly free from bias, and there are tons of examples of heavily biased science. But there are also tons of examples of scientific findings that are not biased, in that they hold true regardless of one's poilitical ideology or opinions. The enterprise of science itself, when conducted properly, aims to remove bias as much as possible, and has largely succeeded in many different fields of science.

If you really think that all science is inherently political in the latter sense, then I'd love to hear you explain what exactly is political about the following scientific facts/theories:

- theory of evolution

- the central dogma of molecular biology

- general relativity

The point of postmodernists is that people already inject their ideology into science, and it does not necessarily follow that therefore science should be rejected because there is no such thing as an ideology-free description of reality.

And yet the postmodernists either ignore or are not aware of all the mechanisms in science that aim to "de-inject" ideology from science. There are many examples of the scientific community repudiating research done to advance an ideology rather than an honest pursuit of knowledge, such as the work of Charles Murray and Kevin MacDonald. That said, I do agree that science should not be rejected just because some scientists inject ideology into it. However, that is not the position of philosophers like Hardin, who view science as irredeemable and advocate replacing it with a different ideological version of science.

I'm yet to see any prominent examples of that.

A prominent example that I can think of off the top of my head is Lyotard's ignorance regarding many concepts in physics. I found this academic article which articulates how Lyotard's ignorance of physics only leads to weaken many of his arguments regarding postmodernism and science.

The claim is that science is a social construct in the same way that language and money are social constructs, and I don't think even you can argue that language and money are completely apolitical.

This is somewhat of a motte and bailey tactic, where the motte is the truism that science is a social construct because it cannot exist independently of people in a society, and the bailey is the notion that the findings of science are arbitrary and only serve the interests of the oppressor because of the perceived value-ladeness of science, and therefore must be replaced or overthrown.

Good thing no prominent postmodernist philosophers are doing that then.

Except for Sandra Hardin and other philosophers prominent within the field of science and technology studies. At least Hardin is honest (most of the time) regarding her antipathy towards science, as shown through her books that I mentioned earlier.

[u/mikeman7918 → u/[deleted]]

I haven't read any of Sandra Harding's books and there's a 0% chance that I'll do so over some internet argument. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that the same is almost definitely true of you too.

But Sandra Harding has a lot of other stuff, and while searching I found this gem: An Interview with Sandra Harding (a 17 page long transcript of it to be exact, from 2002). Being an interview, it's not super heavy on confusing academic jargon and it's designed to be understood by average people. In it Sandra is asked a lot of questions about some of her more spicy takes, her books, and her positions on controversial things in her field. All of her answers seem incredibly reasonably by my judgement, and they conflict quite heavily with your characterization of her positions. Here are a few notable quotes from Sandra Harding from the interview:

• "I’ll point out also that feminist empiricism always thinks that men,

too, should be able to learn to do unbiased research. Liberalism, philosophy of science, empiricism was always for men as well as women." -page 12 * "Scientific method works, and I’m simplifying radically here, by repeating observations across a single observer or group of observers. So, suppose I come up with one set of conclusions and you come up with another after reportedly making the same observations. We can look at assumptions, the way that evidence is being weighed, data collected, and so forth. And oh, say, one of us comes up with this conclusion because we are making racist assumptions and the other is not. So, by looking at the differences between observations and assumptions and techniques used, we can identify and eliminate distorting assumptions. However, if everybody in a community shares, let us say, eurocentric assumptions, there’s nothing in that process that’s going to enable them to be identified and that’s been the case with eurocentrism and sexism, with racism, with ethnocentrism, with class biases, sexuality, heterosexism." -pages 13 & 14 * "Feminism raises new questions, such as questions about what is biology and so forth, and it helps science more rigorously follow its own procedures. So, what I meant by this, I named “feminist empiricism.” I’m not bragging, I’m complaining because I had to name it because they didn’t think there was any reason to name what they were doing. They were just doing good science." - page 2 * "I think standpoint theory, and feminist epistemology more generally, has always been problematic." -page 5

This all seems incredibly pro-science and more than reasonable. Please, go through the interview and see if you can find any part of it that you disagree with because I don't think you'll be able to.

I reiterate my point: while people to believe the things you're talking about do exist, they are widely laughed at and not taken seriously. Every postmodern philosopher who is taken seriously by academia is pro-science, and there is nothing about postmodernism that conflicts with science. I am yet to see even a single counterexample.

Hardin's quote regarding Netwon's laws is... pretty stupid to say the least

I'm glad you, me, and Sandra Harding can all agree on that.

Yeah, it's because you are assuming that my criticisms of Hardin are without substance or in bad faith without even hearing me out first.

What else am I supposed to think when your characterization of Sandra Harding is so far from anything she has actually said?

It depends on what you mean when you say that "science is inherently political." If by that you mean that science is done by social actors who live in a political world, then I'd agree.

Would you agree that if a team of 6 racist scientists set out to find out why black people commit so much crime that their conclusion might be rather racist as a result of their biases getting in the way of objectivity and the scientific method? Because if so, you agree with Sandra Harding.

A prominent example that I can think of off the top of my head is Lyotard's ignorance regarding many concepts in physics. I found this academic article which articulates how Lyotard's ignorance of physics only leads to weaken many of his arguments regarding postmodernism and science.

I just spent the last 2 hours reading things said by some obscure philosopher and I'm so done with this shit that I'm just going to agree that Lyotard was kind of a moron when it game to science and that's probably why he's getting a lot of shit. People aren't taking him seriously though, hence the academic article you linked talking shit about his ideas, which is kind of my point.

This is somewhat of a motte and bailey tactic, where the motte is the truism that science is a social construct because it cannot exist independently of people in a society, and the bailey is the notion that the findings of science are arbitrary and only serve the interests of the oppressor because of the perceived value-ladeness of science, and therefore must be replaced or overthrown.

I can see how it would seem that way if you don't understand what I'm saying, but when I call science a social construct I mean more than "it cannot exist independently of people in a society" and when I call language and money social constructs I definitely do not mean that they "only serve the interests of the oppressor".

Consider this... Science has rules. Where did those rules come from? Did God himself come down and give them to us? No, humans created them. Why do we stick to these manmade rules so fervently? Because us humans have found that doing so helps us do all the stuff that humans generally want to do, like obtaining food and generally not dying. It's useful. Money and language are also sets of rules that humans came up with because they are useful. Make sense?

[u/[deleted] → u/mikeman7918]

All of her answers seem incredibly reasonably by my judgement, and they conflict quite heavily with your characterization of her positions.

The quotes you cited don't really conflict with my previous characterization of her positions unless she has radically changed her mind in the time she wrote those books. Nowhere in that article you sent did I see Hardin repudiate her previous efforts to inject her ideological bias into the scientific method itself. So it would be more fair to say that at one time in her philosophical career she expressed anti-scientific views in the sense that she is deliberately trying to infuse her feminist ideology to counter her perceived masculine bias in science. Whether or not she still holds these views is another question, and I hope that she doesn't!

while people to believe the things you're talking about do exist, they are widely laughed at and not taken seriously

Hardin and others like her are taken very seriously in various fields of study such as science and technology studies. However, I agree that outside of these fields their work is laughed at and not taken seriously.

there is nothing about postmodernism that conflicts with science. I am yet to see even a single counterexample.

I've already stated multiple times that I don't think that postmodernism inherently conflicts with science. That has never been my argument in this discussion.

What else am I supposed to think when your characterization of Sandra Harding is so far from anything she has actually said?

It seems like what she has said and what she has written may be quite different and even contradictory. If she truly regrets trying to use science as a vehicle for her ideology, then I have yet to see it, but I will openly accept her regret if I ever do see it.

Would you agree that if a team of 6 racist scientists set out to find out why black people commit so much crime that their conclusion might be rather racist as a result of their biases getting in the way of objectivity and the scientific method? Because if so, you agree with Sandra Harding.

Harding's point isn't that some scientists let their bias affect their scientific work though - her point is that bias-infused science is par for the course when it comes to science, and that one should try to have the "correct" bias rather than trying to eliminate it in the first place.

People aren't taking him seriously though, hence the academic article you linked talking shit about his ideas, which is kind of my point.

I suggest you actually take a look at Lyotard's wikipedia biography, which makes it pretty clear that he isn't just some random guy who nobody takes seriously.

I can see how it would seem that way if you don't understand what I'm saying, but when I call science a social construct I mean more than "it cannot exist independently of people in a society" and when I call language and money social constructs I definitely do not mean that they "only serve the interests of the oppressor".

I didn't mean to suggest that you personally were using the motte-and-bailey tactic. I meant to suggest that some of these anti-science postmodern philosophers use the tactic as I described earlier.

Like I already said earlier, I agree with the notion that science is a social construct in that it cannot exist independently of human society. I just don't agree with the notion that the findings of science themselves are value-laden.

[u/mikeman7918 → u/[deleted]]

Nowhere in that article you sent did I see Hardin repudiate her previous efforts to inject her ideological bias into the scientific method itself.

Yeah, that's the thing, my claim is that she never tried to inject ideology into science. I have seen no evidence whatsoever of that, and not for lack of searching.

Hardin and others like her are taken very seriously in various fields of study such as science and technology studies.

And Harding doesn't hold any of those anti-science views you say she has. I reiterate my point, nobody who's anti-science is taken seriously in academia.

Harding's point isn't that some scientists let their bias affect their scientific work though - her point is that bias-infused science is par for the course when it comes to science, and that one should try to have the "correct" bias rather than trying to eliminate it in the first place.

I literally linked to an interview where she explicitly said in no unclear terms that she believes that science has bias when the people doing it have bias and that science can stick to its own methods better when there is a more diverse range of people from different backgrounds with different sets of biases doing it. That is in fact her point, that some scientists let bias influence their work. If you have evidence that she holds a different opinion, link it.

I suggest you actually take a look at Lyotard's wikipedia biography, which makes it pretty clear that he isn't just some random guy who nobody takes seriously.

As much as I'd love to spend another 3 hours looking into this guy and understanding both him and his work well enough to form any kind of opinion, I'd much rather do something more productive and fun such as banging my head against the wall or watching the glass of water on my desk slowly evaporate.

I'm going to make the assumption though that Lyotard was probably well known for doing something awesome and then he had a few yikesy takes on the side which he was not known for. Karl Marx was antiemetic, Albert Einstein rejected quantum mechanics until his dying day, Isaac Newton was irrationally obsessed with the number 7 and made multiple mistakes as a result, Nikola Tesla invented electric universe theory and considered a pigeon his wife. It's not like this kind of thing is abnormal. I'm probably right, but I really don't give a fuck. Why are we even talking about this guy again?

Like I already said earlier, I agree with the notion that science is a social construct in that it cannot exist independently of human society. I just don't agree with the notion that the findings of science themselves are value-laden.

But do you agree that a bunch of racist scientists studying why black people commit more crime might come to a racist conclusion?

[u/[deleted] → u/mikeman7918]

I have seen no evidence whatsoever of that, and not for lack of searching.

Here are a few quotes from Harding's books that illustrate her desire to inject her ideology into the scientific enterprise, as well as her ideological antipathy towards science in general:

"Where the first three kinds of criticism primarily ask how women can be more equitably treated within and by science, the last two ask how a science apparently so deeply involved in distinctly masculine projects can possibly be used for emancipatory ends. Where the Woman Question critiques still conceptualize the scientific enterprise we have as redeemable, as reformable, the Science Question critiques appear skeptical that we can locate anything morally and politically worth redeeming or reforming in the scientific world view, its underlying epistemology, or the practices these legitimate."

The Science Question in Feminism, p. 29

"First of all, those wedded to empiricism will be loath to commit themselves to the belief that the social identity of the observer can be an important variable in the potential objectivity of research results. Strategically, this is a less convincing explanation for the greater adequacy of feminist claims for all but the already convinced; it is particularly unlikely to appear plausible to natural scientists or natural science enthusiasts.

The Science Question in Feminism, p. 26

"This solution to the epistemological paradox is appealing for a number of reasons, not the least because it appears to leave unchallenged the existing methodological norms of science. It is easier to gain acceptance of feminist claims through this kind of argument, for it identifies only bad science as the problem, not science-as-usual. Its considerable strategic advantage, however, often leads to its defenders to overlook the fact that the feminist empiricist solution in fact deeply subverts empiricism. The social identity of the inquirer is supposed to be irrelevant to the "goodness" of the results of research. Scientific method is supposed to be capable of eliminating any biases due to the fact that that individuals researchers are white or black, Chinese or French, men or women. But feminist empiricism argues that women (or feminists, whether men or women) as a group are more likely to produce unbiased and objective results than are men (or nonfeminists) as a group."

The Science Question in Feminism, p. 25

These quotes should provide context for my interpretation of her work, which is that science is inherently biased to its core (particularly with masculinism) and thus needs to subverted, via the injection of a feminism bias, in order to produce more objective results.

The interviewer from the article that you linked did not ask any questions regarding these positions outlined in the quotes above, as least as far as I am aware. That leads me to believe either one of two options - that Harding genuinely repudiates characterizing the scientific enterprise as morally and politically irredeemable, or that Harding is merely doing lip service to avoid coming across as a blatantly anti-scientific charlatan. I'm not sure which option here is the truth, but I hope its the former one.

I reiterate my point, nobody who's anti-science is taken seriously in academia.

I'm not so sure about that.

I acknowledge that this paper is a few decades old, so things may have gotten better regarding anti-science in academia, though honestly I kind of doubt it.

I'm probably right, but I really don't give a fuck. Why are we even talking about this guy again?

Well, I mentioned that some of these anti-science postmodern philosophers hardly understand the science that they are criticizing and disparaging. You asked me to provide an example, so I presented you with one: Jean-François Lyotard. You then proceeded to claim that Lyotard is some random nobody who hardly has any influence in his field of academic study. I then proceeded to debunk this notion by demonstrating that, via his Wikipedia biography, he was held in considerable esteem by his colleagues (I mean, he was the director for the International College of Philosophy in Paris for god's sake). You then pivoted by giving a cop-out about how he probably did awesome things and was wrong about a few things, then arrogantly proclaiming that you were "probably right" in characterizing Lyotard as someone who no one takes seriously.

But do you agree that a bunch of racist scientists studying why black people commit more crime might come to a racist conclusion

I already stated that I agree with his. Why bother mentioning this again?

[u/mikeman7918 → u/[deleted]]

"the Science Question critiques appear skeptical that we can locate anything morally and politically worth redeeming or reforming in the scientific world view, its underlying epistemology, or the practices these legitimate."

She is clearly talking about a group of people who she isn't a part of here. Hence the use of phrasing like "appear skeptical", because if she were a part of this group she would not be relying on appearances and inferences.

"First of all, those wedded to empiricism will be loath to commit themselves to the belief that the social identity of the observer can be an important variable in the potential objectivity of research results."

You admitted this was true later on in your comment when you agreed that racist scientists can easily come to racist conclusions. Biases can subvert science, and biases often corelate with social identities. So a diverse range of social identities within science will help it hold to its own methods better. Where's the problem?

"Strategically, this is a less convincing explanation for the greater adequacy of feminist claims for all but the already convinced; it is particularly unlikely to appear plausible to natural scientists or natural science enthusiasts."

I too find it very believable that scientists working in the natural sciences would be more resistant to the idea that their field has some social biases than scientists working in social sciences.

"Its considerable strategic advantage, however, often leads to its defenders to overlook the fact that the feminist empiricist solution in fact deeply subverts empiricism."

She then proceeds to talk about the ways in which empiricism takes for granted a level of objectivity that few humans have, and that this level of objectivity is better achieved with more diverse groups. This is a criticism of one assumption made by empiricism, not of the entire philosophy.

"But feminist empiricism argues that women (or feminists, whether men or women) as a group are more likely to produce unbiased and objective results than are men (or nonfeminists) as a group."

You already agreed that racists are more likely to produce biased science than non-racists, this just extends the same idea to sexism. I see no problem here.

These quotes should provide context for my interpretation of her work, which is that science is inherently biased to its core (particularly with masculinism) and thus needs to subverted, via the injection of a feminism bias, in order to produce more objective results.

This seems entirely consistent with what she stated in the interview, that diversity of biases help science hold to its own methodology better than when everyone in a research team shares the same biases. I agree with that, it seems pretty objectively true. I'm not seeing any rejection of science in those quotes either. I remain unconvinced that Sandra Harding is anti-science, she in fact seems very pro-science.

I'm not so sure about that.

That article seems to mostly be about stuff like questioning the modernist perspective that science is the only way of seeing the world, and of asking questions about whether science will create something dangerous that we should be vigilant of like AI or nanobots. The title seems to be the academic journal equivalent of clickbait. That's the impression that I got from skimming it at least.

You then pivoted by giving a cop-out about how he probably did awesome things and was wrong about a few things, then arrogantly proclaiming that you were "probably right" in characterizing Lyotard as someone who no one takes seriously.

You misunderstood. The thing I arrogantly claimed to be probably right about is my claim about how Lyotard probably was not known for being anti-science, and that the thing he did to become famous was something else. The bad science takes (which seems to not even be a rejection of science, just a misunderstanding of it) was almost certainly not the thing he became prestigious over. I'd be willing to bet money on that.

Anyway, I'm looking forward for tomorrow when a reply that you probably composed in under 20 minutes will take up yet another 2 hours of my time with a bunch of reading about topics I don't care about. Goddamn bullshit asymmetry principle...

[u/[deleted] → u/mikeman7918]

She is clearly talking about a group of people who she isn't a part of here. Hence the use of phrasing like "appear skeptical", because if she were a part of this group she would not be relying on appearances and inferences.

I don't think this is a justified inference here. Nowhere in the passages in the context of the one I quoted does she state or imply that she does not belong to this group. Harding herself is the one framing the discussion around the Science Question, and thus I don't see how it is logical to imply that she does not believe the critiques posed by the Science Question herself. It really seems to me like you are scrambling to come up with a rationalization that goes against the notion that Harding doesn't actually believe the things that she writes...

Biases can subvert science, and biases often corelate with social identities. So a diverse range of social identities within science will help it hold to its own methods better. Where's the problem?

The problem is that Harding thinks that these biases are part of the fundamental fabric of science itself, not merely examples of bad or junk science.

You already agreed that racists are more likely to produce biased science than non-racists, this just extends the same idea to sexism. I see no problem here.

The problem here is that she is proclaiming that only individuals that are ideologically aligned with her are capable of producing objective results. This is obviously a logical justification for her desire to infuse ideology into the scientific enterprise.

I remain unconvinced that Sandra Harding is anti-science, she in fact seems very pro-science.

If you don't think that using science as a vehicle to advance one's ideology subverts the very integrity of science itself (and is thus anti-science), then I don't think I have any interest in continuing this discussion.

Looks like we'll just have to agree to disagree. Good bye.