The Roles of Empirical Evidence, Judgment, and Values in Scientific Explanations: The Case of Gender Differences in Spatial Ability
Year: 2015
Type: article
Abstract: critiques of scientific knowledge have provided insight into the nature and function of social and cultural processes inherent in claims to truth and objectivity.These social/cultural properties and functions of scientific knowledge imply that there are reasons other than the strength of evidence that contribute to the persistence of particular scientific theories and paradigms: in particular, political and ethical factors.For example, Longino (1990) describes the research by Gregory Pincus on the side effects of Enovid, an oral contraceptive.Drawing on Korenbrot's (1979) critique, she describes how Pincus was very concerned about the dangers of unchecked population growth, and that this motivated Pincus to underemphasize conditions such as cervical erosion and thromboembolism that were known to be associated with such oral contraceptives.These kind of critiques demonstrate that it is possible to acknowledge the contributions and importance of scientific research and applications, while simultaneously being highly critical of the norms, values, and assumptions that underlie contemporary understandings of "how science works."Many practicing scientists, however, still adhere to an understanding of science that presumes this fact/value distinction (Fausto-Sterling, 2000;Gorski, 2013;Harding, 1991;Longino, 1990).Such drastic differences in conceptions of the scientific method between practicing scientists and many other academics, I argue, inhibits interdisciplinary work between the sciences and the humanities, despite the increasing importance of such work (Committee on Facilitating Interdisciplinary Research, 2004; National Science Foundation [NSF], 2015).And because many (although not all) of the more "radical" divergences in conceptions of science come from non-scientists, they are largely ignored or discredited by scientists (e.g., Gross & Levitt, 1994;Holton, 1993).In this project then, my overall goal is to demonstrate the relevance, importance, and utility of some of the more "radically different" conceptions of scientific work to practicing scientists.In particular, I will focus on feminist critiques of scientific research that apply to a particular subfield of Psychology, but my hope is that this project can serve as an example of how alternate conceptions of
Author: James Ryan Brunton
Institution: Miami University
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2287341364