something about postmodern feminist epistemology

[DerGegner]

You know that thing that was circulating on bash.org where "wand" gets replaced with "wang" in Harry Potter with hilarious results, e.g., "He bent down and pulled his wang out of the troll's nose. It was covered in what looked like lumpy gray glue."

Well I've noticed you can do something similar to feminist epistemological approaches to science. As you already know, scientists have traditionally been pretty much all male until recent years ... it's also true that a lot of scientists, indeed many of the most important ones, have been or are Jewish. (See http://jinfo.org.)

So I tried my hand at substituting "feminine" with "Aryan" and "masculine" with "Jewish" in a postmodernist screed like that, as well as variants of those terms, mutatis mutandis

http://www.bookrags.com/tandf/science-6-tf/

Despite the unequivocal successes of science, this conventional view of science has been challenged on a number of fronts, notably by Aryan-based scholars (e.g. Keller 1985; Schiebinger 1999), who have argued that science actually reflects a Jewish bias as a means of collecting knowledge. Rather than being completely objective and value-free, the scientific method, as typically defined, reflects hegemonic Jewishness and the subordination of the Aryan race. The Jewish bias in science is expressed in its Jewish language, Jewish structure and methodologies, and Jew-centric epistemology (Letts 2001).

http://www.uah.edu/colleges/liberal/womensstudies/harding.htm

Harding's groundbreaking work in The Science Question in Ariosophy (1986) and Whose Science? Whose Knowledge? (1991) has made these books classics in the philosophy of science. In The Science Question in Ariosophy Harding critiques three approaches to the science question in ariosophy: 1) Aryan empiricism, which sees the problem as lying only in bad science; 2) the Aryan standpoint approach, which privileges the perspective of Aryans in revealing Jewish bias in science; and 3) the postmodern approach, which disputes basic scientific assumptions about objectivity and truth. Harding argues for a perspective that includes anti-Semitism. In Is Science German? Postcolonialism, Ariosophy & Epistemologies, Harding combines the best of Aryan, postmodern, and post-Versailles critiques of modern science, arguing for reconstructing objectivity rather than simply embracing total relativism.

Hmm

Interesting

Am I onto something?

 

[Squawk]

Interesting how? You're basically substituting the supposedly oppressed and the oppressors for their counterparts in a different struggle, it will work for any such pair.

 

[DerGegner]

Well the point is that claims of masculine bias in science are just as ungrounded and ridiculous as claims of Jewish bias in science

But one is acceptable even fashionable and the other makes you look like a raving right-wing loony living in a log cabin in Montana

How absurd society is sometimes

 

[OnkelCannabia]

postmodern feminist epistemology always reminds me of "Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity"

But all this is only a first step: the fundamental goal of any emancipatory movement must be to demystify and democratize the production of scientific knowledge, to break down the artificial barriers that separate ``scientists'' from ``the public''. Realistically, this task must start with the younger generation, through a profound reform of the educational system.94 The teaching of science and mathematics must be purged of its authoritarian and elitist characteristics95, and the content of these subjects enriched by incorporating the insights of the feminist96, queer97, multiculturalist98 and ecological99 critiques.

Alan Sokal was Poeing the world almost ten years before Nathan made his infamous post

 

[Giliell]

Well the point is that claims of masculine bias in science are just as ungrounded and ridiculous as claims of Jewish bias in science

But one is acceptable even fashionable and the other makes you look like a raving right-wing loony living in a log cabin in Montana

How absurd society is sometimes

The point is that you don't have any valid point to make against something you don't like and therefore rely on ridicule.
If you want to refute the hypothesis of male bias, do so by analyzing data, by doing statistics.

 

[borrofburi]

The point is that you don't have any valid point to make against something you don't like and therefore rely on ridicule.
If you want to refute the hypothesis of male bias, do so by analyzing data, by doing statistics.

Do you (do they?) claim that methodological naturalism is masculinely biased and that we should throw it out in favor of something more female biased (or at least, no longer male-biased)? Because that's what it always seems they are saying (and it seems you are coming down on their side).

Edited because I misstyped.

 

[Demojen]

I was expecting a joke in this post...I got a little chuckle, but that's mostly because I think about women more than I do men.

However and on the topic of postmodern "feminist" epistemology, short of singling out instances of favoritism toward one scientist over another based on the MERIT of their research and statements, I would really like to see a good example of scientific research that is biased based on sex. At least, research that isn't about sex itself.

I'm sure they are out there, but I have a hard time believing that they are the "cream of the crop" in the scientific community.

 

[DerGegner]

Well the point is that claims of masculine bias in science are just as ungrounded and ridiculous as claims of Jewish bias in science

But one is acceptable even fashionable and the other makes you look like a raving right-wing loony living in a log cabin in Montana

How absurd society is sometimes

The point is that you don't have any valid point to make against something you don't like and therefore rely on ridicule.
If you want to refute the hypothesis of male bias, do so by analyzing data, by doing statistics.

The issue is philosophical

The claim being made is that the epistemology of science is slanted towards the masculine

What kind of "statistics" do I need to refute this claim

In fact, how can one even refute it?

 

[scalyblue]

If a posit can't be refuted, it's not a suitable posit for research.

 

[Case]

I got a little chuckle, but that's mostly because I think about women more than I do men.

*snickers*

And well, I second Squawk's notion.

 

[DerGegner]

I got a little chuckle, but that's mostly because I think about women more than I do men.

*snickers*

And well, I second Squawk's notion.

What's interesting about this particular case is that a lot of scientists have been male, but a lot of scientists have also been Jewish

So it makes about as much sense to say that scientific epistemology is male as it is Jewish

Except one is fashionable and the other looks loony

 

[Skillbus]

Well the point is that claims of masculine bias in science are just as ungrounded and ridiculous as claims of Jewish bias in science

But one is acceptable even fashionable and the other makes you look like a raving right-wing loony living in a log cabin in Montana

How absurd society is sometimes

The point is that you don't have any valid point to make against something you don't like and therefore rely on ridicule.
If you want to refute the hypothesis of male bias, do so by analyzing data, by doing statistics.

They are making positive, outlandish claims. They are the ones who should show some evidence.

Do you have some statistics that can refute allegations of Jewish bias?

 

[Case]

What's Jewish bias?

 

[DerGegner]

"Jewish bias" refers to the set of institutionalized epistemological assumptions and nuances built into the methods of Jewish science in order to exclude and subjugate the Aryan

(Seriously, DUH)

 

[Case]

"Jewish bias" refers to the set of institutionalized epistemological assumptions and nuances built into the methods of Jewish science in order to exclude and subjugate the Aryan

(Seriously, DUH)

Yes, and now once more, but with content please.

 

[DerGegner]

protip: This is not a serious thread

 

[borrofburi]

protip: This is not a serious thread

I asked a serious question, but it got ignored

I've never understood the "feminists" who attack science or do whatever they're doing... See I just don't even know what they're trying to accomplish or what perception they are reacting to.

 

[DerGegner]

The point is that you don't have any valid point to make against something you don't like and therefore rely on ridicule.
If you want to refute the hypothesis of male bias, do so by analyzing data, by doing statistics.

Do you (do they?) claim that methodological naturalism is masculinely biased and that we should throw it out in favor of something more female biased (or at least, no longer male-biased)?

Yeah kind of

See Sandra Harding for a rather notorious example

Google her name + Newton's rape manual for major lulz

 

[JustBusiness17]

As you already know, scientists have traditionally been pretty much all male until recent years ...

I'm sure you already know that until recent years, gender rolls traditionally excluded women from the workforce. I get the feeling that you would like to continue such a tradition...

 

[Andiferous]

When reading this, It's important to point out that the semantics are rather critical to this argument. The gender definitions of "masculine" and "feminine" are rhetorical and not interchangeable with the sex differences of man and woman. In the theory, qualities of "masculine" or "feminine" are not limited to any particular sex in particular, but they are opposing stereotypes that have been assigned to sex roles in the past - and may still well be, but not really arguing this point right now. This is just questioning whether or not scientific methodology has been built upon the "masculine" stereotype.

As such, the article isn't pointing to a group of people, and replacing "masculine" with "Jewish" twists the meaning by replacing a set of rhetorical qualities ("masculine") with a group of people ("Jewish") which only succeeds in making it sound racist.

That said, there has been sex bias observed in the fields like medical study in the past, and there are arguments over whether or not this still exists today; but from what I can tell, this isn't really the kind of thing the article is saying.