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Feminism Against Science

actanonverba8

January 23, 2013

13 upvotes

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Post Information

Title	Feminism Against Science
Author	actanonverba8
Upvotes	13
Comments	16
Date	January 23, 2013 10:32 AM UTC (13 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/mensrights/comments/174714/feminism-against-science/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/feminism-against-science.1604689 https://theredarchive.com/post/1604689

Comments

[–]SuperUppercut5 points 13 years ago [recovered] | Copy Link

[–]Froolow-1 point 13 years ago [recovered] | Copy Link

[–]SuperUppercut6 points 13 years ago [recovered] | Copy Link

[–]Froolow-1 point 13 years ago [recovered] | Copy Link

diversity of opinion has never been a strong suit of feminists

I'm not certain where you get the idea that there is a weak diversity of opinion among feminists. For example if you visit /r/Feminism you'll see a wide variety of opinions being offered on a diversity of subjects, and the rules of the sub mean that at least all the top level comments must offer a feminist perspective.

In a more formal setting, Henley et al demonstrate that there are at least six different strands of feminist thinking divergent enough to be measured with a sample size of 117.

Because of this, many feminists won't agree with feminist science - it is incorrect to say all feminists don't believe in the scientific method, so I shall assume you meant some feminists don't believe in the validity of the scientific method.

feminists reject the scientific method

However, the authors cited in the wikipedia article you link me are hardcore philosophy of science geeks. Look at this Harding article on standpoint epistemology, for example. Now I'm not sure that I agree with Harding - I think there is an irresolvable tension between her claims that objectivity is a sociopolitical construct and her justification of those claims from an epistomological standpoint - but you absolutely cannot get the impression from reading that article that Harding is against the scientific method.

What Harding argues is that the 'true' scientific method is distorted by the fact it tends to be men in STEM fields, for various quite technical reasons involving underdetermination and Planck-like counterfactual; she argues that if it were accepted that the so-called 'objective' observer doesn't exist then science could progress without the bias which currently hinders it.

(frankly) the studies are doctored

I'm interested to see one of these 'doctored' studies - feminist method has always been an epistomological\metaphysical method, much like the 'scientific method' is an epistomological construct; one doesn't do 'the scientific method', one does science, which is defined by its adherence to a certain set of rules; some feminists think those rules are up for grabs. This is not an unusual view in professional philosophy of science.

For example, no published paper will say, "We applied the scientific method and obtained the following results", they will explain how they applied the scientific method. Harding would argue that a necessary step in any paper is, "We considered whether our upbringing could have caused us to interpret the results in a variety of ways". This seems eminently sensible to me; especially in social sciences where confounders are often lurking in unexposed corners of your methodology.

[–]SuperUppercut3 points 13 years ago [recovered] | Copy Link

I hope you realize that /r/Feminism bans anyone who doesn't agree with them. Seriously, if you question feminist doctrine the mods of that subreddit will ban you so fast your head will spin. Are you sure you want to use that as your shining example of a feminist haven of a diversity of opinions? ;)

You sound like an intellectual so I'm sure you can understand that a person's attitude towards self-directed criticism is an accurate reflection of their integrity. And you cannot honestly tell me that feminists allow criticism of their dogma, on any level.

I don't mean some feminists reject the Scientific Method. I mean all of them do. And I can easily prove it thus: Feminists have for decades funded studies on everything from the self-confidence of young girls, the academic performance of boys and girls, domestic violence, average wages earned across sex, and sexual violence. In every single major study it was found upon review that the results had been doctored, either from a tiny selected sample, or ever changing definitions, or omission of crucial data. This was all done with the intent to show that women/girls were disadvantaged, even when they were clearly advantaged. In the face of undeniable evidence there is no feminist who admits that these studies were rigged to portray women as universal victims (I would challenge you to find me one) and therefore, none of them believe in the Scientific Method. The truth is something they consider unnecessary.

"I'm interested to see one of these 'doctored' studies."

Just one? How about every single feminist funded study on domestic violence? I'd say the icing on the cake was that disappearing girl fiasco in the early 90s when they actually claimed that statistics showed that girls were falling behind in school, when by nearly every single metric it was boys who were lagging behind girls. Or how about the 1/4 rape one where they realized that very few women had actually been raped so they asked misleading questions and just decided that many of the women had been?

The feminist body of science is a joke. It will be used as a case study in the future of how even with the best of intentions, political ideologies poison the truth.

I don't have time to read the Harding article right now but I'd disagree completely with her call to "check your privilege." It is just another way for feminist academics to attempt to discount other's work based on their race and/or sex. The question that should be asked is whether you committed fraud. Whether you purposefully modified the variables to get your intended result. And if that is the question, no feminist would pass muster.

[–]Froolow0 points 13 years ago [recovered] | Copy Link

No, my example of diversity in feminist opinion was the peer reviewed article I linked you. I thought /r/feminism might be more accessible if you weren't interested in reading a serious study with the associated statistical busywork to understand it. As it happens, though, /r/feminism's banning of non-feminists makes no difference to my argument; there exist a diversity of opinions which do not get you banned, proving that there exist a diversity of opinions in feminist canon.

This is important because I question your assertion that all feminists reject the scientific method. I can disprove pretty easily if you will take my word that I am a truthful person; I am a feminist, and I think the scientific method is the most effective way of reaching the truth in all cases where truth exists and corresponds to something in the real world. It's not like I'm approaching this question blind; as I mentioned earlier I have a degree in the philosophy of science and I use the scientific method in my day-job as an economist.

In a more formal way, you haven't addressed the fact that Sandra Harding - probably the voice in feminist standpoint theory - doesn't reject the scientific method. She has criticisms of it, but so do Kuhn, Feryaband, Quine, Duhem and a whole host of seriously respectable scientists and philosophers. Insofar as Harding is a good indicator of the currents of feminist intellectualism, at least some feminists don't reject the scientific method, and that is verifiable by reading Harding's work.

But since we are discussing the scientific method, why don't we put our money where our mouths are? You give me a rigorous definition of what counts as a 'feminist funded' study that I can independently verify and then I will select a feminist funded study for you to analyse. You have made two assertions;

There will be obvious flaws in the methodology of the study
The results will be doctored (and you can prove this - otherwise you're really making an unfalsifiable claim and that which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence)

Do you stand by both of these claims? That every single feminist funded study will be both very flawed and the results doctored? If so then please give me a definition of a 'feminist funded' study that satisfies you. Please don't worry that I'll try and 'win' the argument by selecting too many studies for you to reasonably read; I'll pick only the study I think is best and accept that if it is majorly flawed then all feminist funded studies are majorly flawed. And if you can prove the results of a randomly selected study are doctored I will accept that all feminist funded studies have doctored results. It should take you no more than ten to fifteen minutes to find one glaring flaw and prove that the results are doctored and if you successfully do it you'll have proved to me that feminist standpoint theory has nothing to offer the sciences.

Surely, with odds that skewed in your favour, you'd be mad to refuse?

Edit: Just realised I maybe wasn't clear; the rule for identifying feminist studies needs to be sufficient, but not necessarily necessary; in other words as long as your rule has a high specificity it doesn't matter about the sensitivity as long as you don't deliberately try to pigeonhole me into one or two studies you know are crap

[–]SuperUppercut2 points 13 years ago [recovered] | Copy Link

"There exist a diversity of opinions which do not get you banned."

Agree to disagree. Personally I would never call something diverse if it only allowed one perspective. By banning anyone who criticizes feminism, they've created exactly the opposite of a diversity of opinions.

Sure. Go ahead and check out the study on rape by Mary Koss, THE definitive feminist study of rape and the source of the "1 in 4" statistic.

The obvious flaw is that most of the women stated they had not been raped, while Mary determined that they had been.
The results were doctored because when Mary originally asked women outright whether they had been raped it was decided that the numbers were too low, so they changed the methodology to get the results they wanted. Now when I say doctored, I don't mean they fudged the numbers, I mean they specifically misrepresented the data or altered variables or definitions to get the results they wanted.

I accept your challenge with only one requirement. The study that you choose must be a major feminist study. In order to qualify as major it must be 1. well known 2. widely cited and 3. it must have influenced our legal/educational/etc. systems in some obvious way. I really don't care if feminists are honest with small meaningless studies. If they are being dishonest with the big ones that change people's lives, that is the issue. Find me a major influential feminist study that wasn't purposely flawed and you win, feminist.

EDIT: And just for the record, it isn't necessary to prove that all feminist funded studies are majorly flawed in order to prove that no feminist believes in the scientific method. It is only necessary to prove that all feminists support at least one study that is majorly flawed. And consequently, you would only need to provide one feminist who rejects every majorly flawed study in order to prove me wrong. However any feminist who can admit the persistent fraud of feminist academics is no feminist at all ;)

[–]Froolow1 point 13 years ago [recovered] | Copy Link

Well, I suppose we can disagree. It's not a major point after all.

This sounds very promising, but I'm very concerned you may move the goalposts later unless you're absolutely explicit about what constitutes a 'feminist funded' study. Here are a couple of possibilities:

The author self-identifies as a feminist
The author self-identifies as a feminist and has written about feminism (ie the author is both a scientist and a 'famous' feminist)
The study is explicitly about women, or women's issues (I would check the issue with you while you were blind to the paper to confirm this)
The study explicitly recommends a goal which is favours women
The funding source is a feminist organisation (I have no idea how I would check this)
The study was published in an explicitly female-oriented journal (eg The Journal of Female Psychology)
The study was linked on SRSScience

If you pick one of these (or one of your own) as your definition I would be very grateful; the last thing I want is for one of us to turn around and say we weren't clear on the rules of the experiment!

Note that most of these are nothing to do with funding, but I infer from your comments above that 'funding' was just a turn of phrase and you are really concerned with feminist practices in academia, whatever those are.

You've also stipulated three fairly reasonable requirements of your own. Can I operationalise them thusly:

The journal has to be an English language journal with an impact factor above ~~0.5~~ 1 (so it ~~can~~ can't be a specialist journal like Journal of Applied Biomechanics)
The paper has to have been cited at least once (that is to say; the paper has to be in a citable form and cannot be an opinion piece or note to the editor; the author must have made an attempt to engage with the peer-review process). Moreover, at least one citation cannot be criticism, which is to say at least one other researcher must have used the study rather than warned other not to use it.
The paper has to make a clear recommendation concerning the wider world, even if that concern is not acted on. I qualify in this way because, for example, journals like Econometrica, although fabulous in many ways, rarely impact the real world; I don't think this can be a criticism of a research piece if it attempts to engage with the real world.

Edit: Two small edits, first I changed the impact factor operationalisation to a higher number to rule out most specialist journals; you obviously want something a lot of people have engaged with rather than a small study that experts have engaged with, since your argument is that feminist 'experts' are nothing of the sort. Second, would you be prepared to alter your top level post if I 'win' the experiment (to say something like, "On reflection, it appears feminists don't reject the scientific method"), provided I agree to do the same if I 'lose' (something like, "After conducting an experiment, I now agree with SuperUppercut, details below)

[–]SuperUppercut2 points 13 years ago [recovered] | Copy Link

I gotta say I'm happily surprised and a little impressed with your candor and rigor. You are a credit to your movement.

I respect and share your concern for fixed goalposts. However your questions have given me the chance to further develop my admittedly ill-phrased criticism. I have no doubt that there are many sterling studies conducted by feminists on feminist topics and with feminist goals. I'm sure they would pass the test. What I take issue with is a rather small collection of studies which have had a profound impact on human society. These studies have been incredibly influential. And they were terribly flawed. I take issue with the fact that although feminists can be wonderful individuals, they refuse to criticize the mistakes that have been made within their movement, let alone even acknowledge them. At what point do you look at your own movement and say, "there has been some wrong done here and we need to stop ignoring it and fix things."

If you'd still like to have our challenge I'm game but I don't doubt you :)

[–]Froolow1 point 13 years ago [recovered] | Copy Link

Thanks for your kind words. I actually agree with you in principle; some studies on gender are absolutely crap. For example, in my opinion this is probably the worst-designed study I have ever seen. I obviously needn't deconstruct this study for you; the flaws are obvious, the research torn to shreds by those who peer review for a living and yet it is still upheld by some people as worthwhile research.

On the other hand, some research into gender is absolutely sterling, like this RCT by Moss-Racusin et al (2012) that demonstrates you can replicate Bertrand and Mullainathan's study into race discrimination in job applications (2002) with gender.

In fact, MR looks very hostile to science when discussing this study on reddit; look at Sigil1 make personal attacks and evade the question when IHAQ asks reasonable questions about the relevance of a study he links in rebuttal, or tomek77 criticise the sample size without consulting the power analysis done by the researchers (not to mention criticising the lead author for a completely different study she wrote for her PhD).

I think - as with any sub-group of people or specific area of research - there is some good science and some bad science. This applies in every arena, including gender. I think it is a little unfair to accuse all researchers into gender of professional misconduct, even if some studies in their field are dross

[–][deleted]4 points 13 years ago [recovered] | Copy Link

[–]SuperUppercut3 points 13 years ago [recovered] | Copy Link

[–][deleted]5 points 13 years ago [recovered] | Copy Link

[–]SuperUppercut4 points 13 years ago [recovered] | Copy Link

[–][deleted]2 points 13 years ago [recovered] | Copy Link

[–]SuperUppercut3 points 13 years ago [recovered] | Copy Link