18:00 Didn't Einstein also remark in Relativity that "matters of elegance should be left to the tailor and the cobbler"? ... Yes he did, but it was a quotation from Ludwig Boltzmann and he was referring to his writing style, not the theory itself. Never mind, carry on.
Beauty is like a unanimous opinion amongst humans. We all know who is miss Australia and who is the native aboriginal fatted woman. Einstein meant his theory fit a heuristic.
The value of having both male and female perspectives has been kinda opaque to me. But the primatologist example is nice, because it suggests things directly relevant to gender and sex might be missed (oh and the other examples)
So by saying that a female perspective is helpful, you are affirming that there is such a thing like a female perspective and that hence men and women do have some inherent differences.
Aw man, you fell for the sperm and egg bs too. Read Gross' essay, "Macho Sperm, Bashful Eggs, and Tonypandy." This stuff has been thoroughly criticized for decades.
No kidding. There's literally nothing here except pretending to reveal some kind of truth through mapping metaphors. 11:35 is hilarious, claiming Bacon was using "rape metaphors" when talking about mother nature. no wonder no-one takes this shit seriously. If this video had actually been feminist perspectives on SCIENCE ITSELF, not particular scientists and science history, it might have actually been interesting.
26:18. The practice of circumcision is still widely used, despite the modern drugs that have practically eliminated its need. Is this a sexist practice?
Jimmy D. I'd say it is sexist based in antiquity, where only males can be initiated into the system of ordained political hierarchical power. Although, genital mutilation is obviously practiced both on males and females. As a humanist, I oppose all unnecessary surgical procedures practiced on anyone without their informed consent.
@@mostlyholy6301 you didnt answer either really. I asked 2 questions, not stated an opinion. Historical circumcision isnt a reason for its practice today. Unless you are Jewish.
2:25 About 1984, I want to point out that in the book, in one of the moment where it reads more like a treatise, it is stated explicitly that science is antithetical to the views of 'the party'. It is mostly technology the party uses and even the growth of technology is mostly prevented. While the world described in 1984 to some degree requires technology and prior science to exist, the attempt in it to freeze history make science a rather periferal tertiary part of the problem.
Fair point. But while I think you are correct that 'the party' does not want science to *continue* it is still the case that they rely on science to stay in power. There could not have been a party in 1884, only 1984, and the difference is science.
The difference, or rather a part thereof, is technology. This might be the result of science but it isn't quite the same as science. It's fair enough to point out that we as a society and the scientific community in particular ought to be careful about the technology we make and how it can be used but there are other factors besides science and technology itself that influence what we do with technology. I think you see this in 1984 as well. The party is as much distinguished from their earlier counterparts (20th century totalitarians, the medieval catholic church, ancient pharaohs) by a certain ideological purity and thouroughness and its vast bureaucracy as by telescreens and hidden mikes. The book states that it makes sense for 1984 to happen when it happens but not just because it could happen only now but also because it had to happen now. Allowing the wealth that resulted from industrialisation to spread around too evenly would have robbed the party of a lot of its power. I will restate that I think science, or rather technology had some role in 1984, it seems like a relatively minor point compared to the changing of language and the distrustful spying and telling on one another.
Ok, paused at 3:27. Bad argument to state that science isn't apolitical if you don't want the climate change deniers to have a stake at a debate on the findings of science.
"Bad argument to state that science isn't apolitical if you don't want the climate change deniers to have a stake at a debate" Where did I say this in this video? I certainly I did not say it at 3:27.
I'm not trying to put words in your mouth, just making the point that gender bias isn't a universally applicable notion in science. Feminist critique of science often implies that it is in hard science as well, not just behavioral studies, or primatology and related studies.
I want to ask about differentiating between "male" and "female" perspectives. Is it implied (in the context of this lecture) that these are two inherently different ways of thinking? Second wave feminists would probably agree with that but I do not think it is position in general asociated with feminism. Or is this kind of language used just to make distinction between "science before women were allowed to enter" and "science after women were allowed to enter"? Would the feminist authors you mention claim that scientific understanding in the cases presented had to be changed by women or would they claim that it would have probably changed anyway once society became less sexist, even if there happened to be no women at that particular field?
Hey Sisyphus, I really enjoyed this video, but I have two questions, I'd like to ask, please. Firstly, you seem to be saying that emotion is a valuable addition to reason in scientific investigation, but you only back this up by saying that emotion can be used to decide between options when there is no significant difference. Am I misinterpreting you? Secondly, you back up your claim that science has suffered from lack of gender diversity in the past (a claim with which I have no intrinsic issues, by the way) by several examples of misconceptions that mislead scientists in the past. However, I feel like these examples highlight more that societal misconceptions can misdirect science, than that they illustrate that gender imbalance can misdirect it. Taking your example for primatology, specifically, don't you think that Victorian women would have shared the men's perspective that women are (to be) passive in sex and men active? To me, it seems like this was general social mores in that time, and nearly everyone would have had this bias. I'm of course no historian, so I might be mistaken, but I was wondering what you would think about this.
"you only back this up by saying that emotion can be used to decide between options when there is no significant difference. Am I misinterpreting you?" That part of the video was trying to show that neurologically there is no hard and fast line between (what we typically think of as) reason and (what we typically think of as) emotion. But that kind of 'tie-breaking' is actually really important in science, too. Experiments would take a hell of a lot longer without it. "don't you think that Victorian women would have shared the men's perspective that women are (to be) passive in sex and men active?" Well, strictly speaking most Victorian women didn't have access to the education necessary to be primatologists. But for the sake of argument, yeah, there's a real possibility that they wouldn't have noticed because of how they'd be socialized. At the same time, however, that misconception persevered until the point that women really started to have access to the discipline. Like many feminist scholars note, issues of this sort are very rarely JUST about gender. Race, class, religion, etc. all intersect and play roles.
"That part of the video was trying to show that neurologically there is no hard and fast line between (what we typically think of as) reason and (what we typically think of as) emotion." >> Hmmm, in that case I'm not quite sure I follow your reasoning. You say there is no clear distinction between reason and emotion, and you back this up with an example where someone has their emotional faculties damaged and encounters problems when they apply reason to a situation that reason cannot resolve, because the two outcomes are identical. Can you elaborate on why you feel this indicates emotion and reason are intertwined? Perhaps we have a different view of reason, but to me it seems like this just shows that when there is no interesting difference between alternatives, reason can't help you, but emotion can. But then, so can a coin flip. "At the same time, however, that misconception persevered until the point that women really started to have access to the discipline." >> Do you know if those misconceptions were specifically, and disproportionally overthrown in articles authored by women? Because I feel like mentioning previously existing biases inherited from biases in society at large, doesn't quite support your point, whereas women disproportionally tackling those biases would. I want to stress that this is a genuine question, not some rhetorical trick, but I don't know much about the history of primatology and such, and I get the impression that you do, so I thought I'd ask.
" to me it seems like this just shows that when there is no interesting difference between alternatives, reason can't help you, but emotion can. " What determines whether or not something is 'interesting' in this context? Is that a rational determination or an emotional one? Can we answer those questions with a coin flip? You might be familiar with Isaac Asimov's line “The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not, 'Eureka! I've found it,' but, 'That's funny!'" Assuming you at least generally agree with Asimov here, we can ask the same question above: is 'funny' an emotional or a rational determination? Can we determine what's 'funny' by a coin flip? Granted I am not a neuroscientist, I could certainly be wrong here, but I think these questions don't really make sense neuroscientifically. The brain simply can't be carved up into that kind of black-and-white distinction. In other words: it's not merely that emotions can break ties between otherwise similar options. It's that the brain processes that we use in making decisions in general cut across the (so-called) rational parts of the brain and the (so-called) emotional ones. Damasio and Berchara's worth simply illustrates that fact in a vivid way.
"What determines whether or not something is 'interesting' in this context? Is that a rational determination or an emotional one? Can we answer those questions with a coin flip?" >> I would say the difference is interesting if the rational case for one is clearly stronger than that for the other. You could then nitpick about what determines which rational case is stronger, but I feel like that's purposefully obscuring the point. In your example, we are clearly encountering a tiebreak between entirely equivalent options. "That's funny!" is an expression of something acting counter-intuitively. That is, it indicates that the speaker notes that his observations do not match his previously held theory or model. I would consider this a rational evaluation. In the final paragraph, you seem to demonstrate a different view of reason from mine. I view reason from the perspective of proof theory: it is a set of rules of inference that you use to guide you from premises and observations to conclusions. An example of such a rule of inference would be: "If A, then B" "A" "Thus B". An example of an irrational rule of inference would be: "If A were false, I would be sad." "Therefore, A is true." I feel like one is being rational if and only if one is using these specific rules to come to their conclusions. In other words, rationality, to me, is not some part of the brain or a property of a person, but rather a property of one's train of thought. Considering the rather limited progress of neuroscience in Ancient Greek, I think it most likely the people you cited (Plato, Kant, etc.) share my notion of rationality, rather than yours, so arguing against them from neuroscience seems to be equivocating a little, if I'm honest, because you're using the terms differently than they would have.
@@rex635 I am not sure how your perspective might have evolved thus far, but here's my two cents on the importance of emotion: Surely you must be familiar with all the ways emotion can oppose reason. But they can also coincide and aid one another. Is logic (or reason) normative? Well, there must be some reason we rely on the outcomes of our reasoning in the first place. For someone to undertake the endeavour of uncovering the truth, they must desire and therefore value knowing the truth. In other words, truth-seeking is initiated by emotion But what sparks this emotion? Well, it could be that you make an observation which contradicts your current belief structures. So, reason has sparked an emotion: the feeling of curiosity Reason and emotion may be distinguished, but they are certainly intertwined, contradicting each other's functioning some times, supporting one another at others And at some point you come to an answer, through the act of reasoning. How come you know your answer is adequate? Because it gives you a feeling of satisfaction Look at solving for x: 3x + 6 = 18 3x = 24 24/3 = x x = 8. You know the answer here is correct, and undoubtedly so. We've gone through the steps of reasoning, and we know we are done. Why? Because you can sense it is. The reasoning done here coheres with, and is supported by the rest of your worldview (or what you know of math). It does not depend on a coin flip, because that would be random - which feelings are not. Recognizing good reasoning and truth is a feeling, or a sensation at the very least
"deaths in wars have been declining in the post modern world since the advent of science and technology." How does that bear on what I was saying at 2:20? I didn't say anything about body count.
SisyphusRedeemed It might be interesting that body count (particularly of combatants, for instance) is raised as the most important data point, rather than, say, mass global displacement of whole communities and regions. That kind of thinking could also be seen as biased.
because death , ie body count is the greatest impediment to quality of life. Technology has allowed casualty rates to plummet and reduced the severity of wars. Concerning mass displacement, refugees of wars today are considered asylum seekers, not prisoners of war, even if they are conscripts who have fled. If we still fought wars with traditional means, ie front lines, mass displacement could not exist and casualty rates would remain high.
Jimmy D. There are many people who argue that death would be preferable to a diminished quality of life. People who advocate doctor-assisted suicide, for instance.
Hold on, Kuhn and Lakatos, at least, while they certainly didn't argue that *Scientists* or their claims or whatever came out of a vacuum; I don't remember at all this claim that "science as a discipline isn't 'value neutral.'" In fact, the very fact that there are different scientists--Popper's dogmatic vs skeptic scientists--hold different value judgments seems to indicate (at least to me) that science (as a discipline) IS value neutral. Again, yea, what is *taken* as dogmatic truth by the current paradigm definitely isn't value neutral, but its not like there's any inherent value judgments that you need to make (except mayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyybe some sort of metaphysical/epistemological concept of an ego, a synthetic judgment about the individual in relation to being, or as Neitzche would put it: a false judgment). Like, I'm just trying to figure out how *ingrained in the discipline* you need to to hold certain values. As far as I can tell, there isn't even a "discipline" in science at all; so how the hell on earth can you say that "as a discipline" it isn't "value neutral." Science is literally nothing. NOTHING! Oh, and your Phineas Gage (not trying to nitpick but I think you mispelled his name) example actually refutes itself. You even said he could do "purely logical" things like mathematics--which is excellent that you ddin't leave that out, because I was going to comment on that. The fact is, that what we "typically" think of as "rational" isn't rational in the sense of what "pure logic" or pure "reasoning" is. When we say that something is a logical fallacy, all we are saying, as I"m sure you're aware given that you've probably taken several logical classes, is that the conclusion is NOT a necessary condition of the premises (i.e. that the conclusion could be false and the premises true). This is EXACTLY the sort of reasoning that Gage could have done. . . assuming that you had already symbolized the words/vocabulary into the propositional/prepositional (depending on what you were doing) logical symbolism. Could Gage have made advancement in math or logic? Obviously not, because actual advancement requires thinking beyond just mere logical deduction. But that doesn't make him a good counter example to the opposing argument. It just means that the popular wisdom has the ideas wrong (what a fantastical surprise /sarcasm).
Although I know your style from previous videos, coming into this I couldn't predict how you were going to handle it. I learned from this impressive lecture. Thanks for tackling it.
I love how you were tone policing Francis Bacon over the symbolism he was using when, whenever people use metaphors and symbolism the actual message is embedded/encoded in those symbols and metaphors themselves. You're completely missing the ideas he's expressing by only focusing on the way he's expressing them (and expressing how you wouldn't want people to express themselves in that way). It's quite a passive aggressive way to try and impose your will on others through shame if not social ostracism. Makes me think this is nothing but an act of power play rather than a search for truth.
It's pretty dismissive to reduce Lloyd's criticism to 'tone policing.' She is noting how men throughout the history of science have used gender concepts to frame the relationship between humanity, science and the natural world. This is a significant insight. It doesn't mean that Bacon is necessarily wrong, but it certainly shows a significant bias on his part, and we should seriously try to understand how that bias may have skewed his perspective.
It's a retarded notion to suggest that only men have used gendered concepts like that. To suggest that language has been developed among or because of men alone. One might even suggest that idea to be misogynist. It *is* in fact tone policing since it's not addressing the message or even his perspective. If you want to find out if there's a bias in his perspective, investigate his perspective/message, not merely the words or symbols he's using. Especially not when the conclusion is that "it certainly shows a significant bias on his part" only to end in a "may", a weasel word. Next, if having a bias is a problem in the first place, that is, if it is better to investigate without any bias at all, that notion discounts all perspectives, including the feminist perspective, because it's biased. The feminist perspective then isn't solving the problem of existing biases, it's simply introducing a new bias and exacerbating the fundamental problem.
I was going to bring up the number of female applicants for hard science studies along with the massive amounts of positive discrimination to get women into those fields in "free societies" such as Scandinavian countries, but all you get is a massive difference between men and women even applying for any of it. So unless you think women today are radically different in their interests than they were a couple of generations ago, I'd not so much focus on any potential discrimination happening at the mid-line and rather turn the attention to why proportionally so few women want to even do hard science in the first place. Protip: feminists will say "patriarchy" but if that is indeed the case, it must have also been patriarchy forcing them into those women's studies courses in the first place. Good job fighting the patriarchy feminists. *claps*
@@cdonovan72 If that was the case then why is there a BIGGER difference in the fields men and women go into in societies considered to be more egalitarian (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender-equality_paradox). If you look at the criticisms of the studies on the page there is nothing that rules out biological differences affecting interest (which is the simplest explanation and also happens to make a lot of sense) We seem to have no problem pointing out the differences between sexes affecting behaviour in other animals, but (for modern feminists) apparently in humans both sexes are miraculously the same (if it wasn't for that pesky patriarchy that seems to be really good at changing what interests us).
@@kevinscales Being considered an egalitarian society doesn't mean that it is so. As if legal statuses are a measure of all things of value when it comes to equality. Further, your wiki article even suggests the study you cited is not even credible, so good job there. Other species aren't being interpellated by cultural norms or beliefs and having to be value judged on actions.
@@cdonovan72 You know what, you are right about that study, I didn't know about the problems with it. Obviously I don't think legal statuses are the be all and end all, but you would expect legal statues to have a real measurable effect (otherwise why care about legal statuses affecting genders differently). Your point about other species is the same point I am making. So why are female and male behaviours different?
In nursing the theory that I have heard is that men who are interested in medicine are far more likely to become doctors, a job that for women has far more barriers. Being a nurse is a consolation prize, as it were. It's not that men face barriers to becoming nurses, it's that they don't face barriers that force them to settle for being nurses. I don't know how strong the evidence is for that theory, but prima facie it makes sense to me. I haven't heard anything about teaching.
"men who are interested in medicine are far more likely to become doctors, a job that for women has far more barriers." This "theory" (more like hypothesis) shows interesting bias in minds of those proposing it. In your own video while talking about economics, you pointed out how economics didn't used to count housework into total labor, because it wasn't paid work. If we keep in mind that being paid for work or money in generally isn't the only important thing in life, why should we assume people want to be a doctors instead of nurses? An idea I'd like to see research done is hypergamy, which provide interesting counter hypothesis for idea that women have greater barriers to be a doctor than men do. What if there is actually social expectation that man being a nurse isn't enough for him to have long term relationship with women? I'm not saying this is the case, but I'd be interested to find out. In fact Mythbusters had similar experiment, where a large group of women valuated men's attraction base solely on their look, place of living and jobs. What they found out was that men with better paying job titles got better points than when they had less paying jobs. Of course Mythbusters didn't do really rigid scientific test, but it does raise an interesting idea: what if men are driven to become doctors instead of nurses in order to have greater value in sexual marketplace? At the same time there isn't as strong push for women to be doctors, because maybe their value in sexual marketplace isn't as strongly tied to their careers? IDK, but I believe it is something worth looking up. And no matter what, I believe we should consider, why we tend to think being a doctor is better than being a nurse? Is it because if higher salary? Why is high salary so important? Is there other metrics we can use in comparison of different jobs?
"If we keep in mind that being paid for work or money in generally isn't the only important thing in life, why should we assume people want to be a doctors instead of nurses?" Money isn't the only important thing, but it is certainly an important thing. Social prestige is another, and in general, people view doctors as more prestigious than nurses. (This might account, in part, for the mate-selection effect from Myth Busters you point to.) Workplace authority and autonomy is yet another factor in career decisions, and doctors have more of that, too. "What if there is actually social expectation that man being a nurse isn't enough for him to have long term relationship with women? I'm not saying this is the case, but I'd be interested to find out. " Me too. I'm skeptical, but it certainly doesn't seem like an outrageous idea. "what if men are driven to become doctors instead of nurses in order to have greater value in sexual marketplace? At the same time there isn't as strong push for women to be doctors, because maybe their value in sexual marketplace isn't as strongly tied to their careers?" Yeah, it certainly could be. But I think you should note that even if this is the case it doesn't gainsay the point of the video. Whatever the reason why men feel the drive to become doctors (money, prestige, mate-selection, etc.) that does nothing to suggest that women don't encounter barriers to careers as doctors. Granted, it does complicated the measurement of such barriers, as now there are several other factors to account for.
"But I think you should note that even if this is the case it doesn't gainsay the point of the video... that does nothing to suggest that women don't encounter barriers to careers as doctors." Of course it doesn't mean there isn't barriers for men or women for one job or another. My point was that going in with biases (being a doctor is better than being a nurse, and lack of female doctors implies barriers) might lead as one sided and wrong conclusions as case studies you brought up in your video demonstrate. For example Iran "70% of its science and engineering students are women." [wikipedia source have paper from Nature, but sadly I have no access to it, and can't verify it], while in Canada only 33% graduating from STEM fields are women. Why is this? Is there barriers for men in Iran to study engineering, and in Canada barriers are for women? The problem is bias among those doing research. If researchers see being a doctor highly valuable because of salary or prestige or high education or whatever reason, they might make a huge mistake assuming people only think those things while choosing their careers. We need more good research about why there are disparity in certain jobs and study fields, but one must always remember that disparity does not equate to barriers. After all, there could be perfect 50/50 distribution between 2 groups, while there's still barriers for only 1 group.
I just think the argument you're presenting is about equality of outcome. For instance, women have parity representation in law school. Yet only 34% are members of the American Bar Association, in spite of the fact that the president of the ABA has been predominantly women in the last 10-20 years. The argument that women earn slightly less as lawyers is the focus, not the fact that female law grads aren't becoming practicing attorneys, hence ABA membership.
It seems to me that you can't on the one hand declare men and woman are in general cognitively equal while also saying a "female perspective" is needed. 12:14 and I think the feminists are the only ones with rape fantasy, what unsubstantiated nonsense; bloated word-salad analysis brought to you by critical theory and modern feminism. 90% of the "feminist" literature I've encountered reads hardly better than your slightly above average senior highschool English paper; where the student needs to fill the page so he analyzes the color of the protagonists shirt as to represent his inner moral turmoil. 23:12 great, #not-all. A single example or citation of would have been interesting, I must have missed the "pregnant women hunter tribe" display at my natural history museum. I have a question for Feminists; why not stop "critiquing" science, i.e. drudging up misogynist things Aristotle might have said hundreds of years ago that only you know about, and start actually DOING science?
You can argue that women and men are not inherently different while arguing that they are culturally conditioned differently. The "female perspective" may not be inherent to women across cultures but could be a collection of traits that are labeled as feminine and drilled into children based on their gender. As to why feminist philosophers of science critiqued science itself the reason is pretty obvious. Science is an amazing tool and for a large part of the 19th century it was being used to justify silly prejudice that didn't have much evidence supporting it. If we want to prevent that from happening it is a good idea to look where that bias came from so we don't repeat that mistake in the future.
"culturally conditioned differently" and the tendency for society to do so arises ex nihilo? No. Not to say that culture or society doesn't impact the individual but there are proven biological differences between the sexes, both physically and mentally. The actual point about a "female perspective" is so speciously made; the examples so unconvincing; and even if taken for granted I'd be interested in how feminists can begin to segment a conclusion reached via a "male perspective" vs a purely "rational / scientific perspective" as to have some intellectual honesty. Surely if you can purport to find the miraculous scientific observations resulting from an explicitly "female perspective" they could do the same for men and then find where they overlap? Instead of, you know, calling Francis Bacon rapey. "why feminist philosophers of science critiqued science" Ok, let me be more specific; there are hundreds if not thousands of women who will go into gender studies themselves, by their own volition, and then with an actual straight face proceed to screech about how "there are not enough woman in STEM".
Even if every gender studies professor switched to a STEM field women would still be underrepresented. If we want to understand why things like this happen (www.pnas.org/content/109/41/16474.full) we are going to need feminists to examine the messages our culture sends women and men about gender roles.
"every gender studies professor" I was talking about students as well, individuals who have every opportunity in front of them to get into STEM but CHOOSE to go into gender studies and then have the audacity to admonish "society" for not having equal representation in the STEM fields. These are silly people who deserve to be laughed at. I've skimmed through that study, and even a couple paragraphs in they state that they have no evidence that "women scientists encounter discrimination". It seems you and much of academia are ghost hunting. Even if there WERE outright discrimination of women in STEM (there isn't) it could still entirely be the case that women have a general inclination towards other fields of study regardless of what "culture drills into them" but this is never even acknowledged (or investigated) by modern feminists because they have an ideological bias rooted in social constructivism and marxism.
Do you not realize what you just did by pointing out that even if every gender studies professor switched to STEM that there still wouldn't be enough to have equal representation? You drove your entire argument off the cliff is what you did. There simply are not enough women applying to STEM fields to reach this lofty and utterly pointless goal of equal representation. Are you really going to start engineering the society just to have an equal representation in every field, or just managerial positions, like that study you keep linking suggests? Feel free to argue that women are being driven away from STEM fields next; they are free to choose is what matters the most, next to living a fulfilling life. What reason, what possible reason and for whose benefit would you ever want to engineer society in such a way? In that other comment of mine, I spoke about problems that exist only when viewed through a certain lens and this is one of those. In the UK, they've actually had to shut down courses due to lack of participation after an attempt to encourage women to participate, preferring them over men. Is this the kind of future you want, or do you want a future where people are free to choose the life they want? I'm all for removing barriers and obstacles, but parity is a pipe dream of the gender ideologues of the Marxist kind.
The absence of emotion makes one incomplete if there is only reason. Especially, if you believe in the Eastern Philosophical yin-yang conception of how one opposite cannot exist without the other. Hyper-rationality is most alarming.
It's naive to science is objective? Where did that came from? When I was watching the Feyerabend lecture it seemed you tried to be impartial. It found it difficult to guess where you stand and now you start with this gem.
I think the exact wording I use is "came to be seen as naive." That's passive voice, to be sure, but I also think it's pretty damn impartial. I'm describing the state of play in the decades that followed Kuh, not endorsing it.
You said you believe that at this point it's not terribly controversial to say this view is naive at best. Anyway I finished the lecture and I found it actually interesting despite this weird statement right in the beginning.
Feminist characterizations of Bacon rest upon fraudulent quote-mining and hostile cherry picking. My video, "Bastardizing Empiricism," covers this in detail.
I'm not convinced. You failed to properly explain what this "Institutionalized sexism" looks like, and more importantly, how we know that it actually is sexism. For example, when you talked about the primatologists and their biases, you didn't actually show that they arose because they were men, just that they existed. Their mistake could've been applying human patterns of behaviour (where the woman was tipically passive) to the behaviour of chimps, and simply acted out of ignorance. Or maybe they didn't have good enough research and had only observed females being passive. Point is, there is no reason to assume that women, in the same context (especially WHEN), wouldn't have made the same exact mistake. Now I'm not saying sexism doesn't exist because it does, and I don't doubt that it has real impact within the scientific community. What I think you are ignoring though is that just because things play out differently for women than for men, it is not necessarily because of sexism. For example, you use the men being the hunters and women being the caretakers assumption to highlight bias, and although it could very well be bias, there is no reason to think its because male scientists just said "women are only good for raising children". Again, maybe the research was poor, and maybe, since men are tipically stronger than women, it was a reasonable assumption to think that men would tend to do the more physically demanding activities.
Would it be unreasonable to assume given the bevy of social science research that consistently shows women to be more empathic that they would be better caregivers. Given that most females throughout most of human history spent there time pregnant or rearing and socializing children it would not be unreasonable to conclude they might have evolved traits suitable to the demands they faced. Men of course faced very different demands centered around needing to produce resources and having to navigate less intimate relationships required to procure those resources thus evolving a more restrictive emotional range. Remember we are talking about millions of years.
I have some interesting contributions of feminist perspective to the philosophy of science. 1)"Traditional historians and philosophers have said that these [rape and torture] metaphors are irrelevant to the real meanings and referents of scientific concepts ... But when it comes to regarding nature as a machine, they have a quite different analysis: here, we are told, the metaphor provides the interpretations of Newton’s mathematical laws: it directs inquirers to fruitful ways to apply his theory ... But if we are to believe that mechanistic metaphors were a fundamental component of the explanations the new science provided, why should we believe that the gender metaphors were not? A consistent analysis would lead to the conclusion that understanding nature as a woman indifferent to or even welcoming rape was equally fundamental to the interpretations of these new conceptions of nature and inquiry. Presumably these metaphors, too, had fruitful pragmatic, methodological, and metaphysical consequences for science. In that case, why is it not as illuminating and honest to refer to Newton’s laws as “Newton’s rape manual” as it is to call them “Newton’s mechanics”?". 2)"Is E=Mc2 a sexed equation? Perhaps it is. Let us make the hypothesis that it is insofar as it privileges the speed of light over other speeds that are vitally necessary to us. What seems to me to indicate the possibly sexed nature of the equation is not directly its uses by nuclear weapons, rather it is having privileged what goes the fastest…”. By Sandra Harding and Luce Irigaray, respectively, I know there is some controversy about the second one, but who can deny that?. So, there you go, the foundation of modern civilization and modern technology is rooted in rape apology and discrimination/marginalization. God bless feminism!
Hi Sisyphus. No, its actually other way around. After my degree I went into those so called hard-sciences and I have realized that philosophers who talk about science are basically like those folks who read a lot of magazines about fighting and think that they are martial artists now, if you allow me such a colorful analogy. If you talk to them, they really seem to be experts on the subject, but in the end you know they never stood nowhere near the mat/ring.
Most philosophers of science are also scientists though. Not only is Massimo Pigliucci a philosopher of biology but he is also a biologist with a PHD in both philosophy and biology.
17:46 - just stupid. You need emotions to reason, because you need a drive - but because you need to make an arbitrary decision. I don't think you've read it.
Read what? "Descartes Error?" I assure you I have. Very closely, in fact. I lecture on it regularly. It was a very important book in my doctoral dissertation. And I assure you Damasio's point is nowhere near as simplistic as 'emotions drive, reason steers.' That's actually a view he is quite harshly criticising.
It matters if you want to understand Einstein. It matters if you want to understand the context of discovery. It matters if you want to understand scientific values like simplicity.
That seems very reasonable, and I agree it matters for those purposes, but would you not say that all those examples are relevant to historic investigation into Einstein/relativity, not scientific investigation of relativity itself? That is, it matters, but it doesn't matter for scientific purposes, only for historical purposes. I'm not sure if I'm being entirely clear, but I hope I am
One of the big lessons that Thomas Kuhn taught us is that it is a mistake to try and separate the history of science from science. If you don't understand how you got where you are, you're not going to be very good at navigating from there.
While I understand it's useful to know which experiments lead to which insights, and which theories came before the current understanding, I struggle to imagine fact(oid)s like this can generate too much scientific insight. My cosmology teacher once asked in an exam what Einstein called his "happiest moment" (a free falling coordinate system locally has a minkowski metric). Things like these seem like interesting trivia to me, but I fail to understand what use they could be to a scientist. Could you give an example of a case in which knowing Einstein felt relativity had to be right because it was so beautiful might aid a physicist in his discoveries? Or knowing about his 'happiest moment'? Doesn't have to be real, may be hypothetical, I just don't quite get where you're coming from.
"Could you give an example of a case in which knowing Einstein felt relativity had to be right because it was so beautiful might aid a physicist in his discoveries?" I'll try. Imagine a scientist working on a kind of a fringe theory. Her colleagues consider her theory to be a long shot; it's not ridiculous, but if they were placing bets they'd bet pretty heavily against her theory. One of her colleagues decides to press her on why she thinks her theory is worth her time, given how everyone else in the field seems to think her time would be better spent elsewhere. She, of course, has some experiments and some data, but her colleague points out that everyone else knows about that data and accommodates it in other ways. Pressed, she plays a similar card Einstein did: "It's just such an elegant theory I think there has to be something to it. I know I haven't figured out a way to prove it yet, but there has to be a way to do that. I just need to find it." At this her colleague replies: 'You're being irrational! You're supposed to be a scientist, and that means you follow the evidence, not this strange idea of 'elegance'. If the evidence doesn't support your theory then you should abandon it.' Our scientist disagrees. She preservers. 10 years later, after many, many more conversations of the sort above, she publishes a paper detailing a groundbreaking experiment that fundamentally transforms the field. 10 years after that her theory is the dominant theory in the field. Obviously in retrospect she was right, and it was the evidence that vindicated her theory, not her sense of 'elegance'. But that's in retrospect. What about those 10 years beforehand? Was our scientist, like her colleague suggested, being irrational for those 10 years? Was she being a bad scientist (or even not a scientist at all)? Did her sense of elegance play an important role in the legitimate scientific process here? Would you say it 'aided her in her discoveries'?
If you Google "Richard Dawkins on Women's Studies, academic bullies, and academic fraud" you will find he had some things to say about Luce Irigaray who called “E=mc2“ a “sexed equation". Also, Christina Hoff Sommers would have some criticism of the view that active sperm invading a passive egg view of feminists: RU-vid search for "Feminist biology: Do we need feminist sciences? | FACTUAL FEMINIST"
Yes, the well being of half the population is important, which is why feminism is wrong. Feminism only concerns itself with the well being of the women collective. One of the founding principles of feminism is an intersex power struggle that says any gain for women must come at the cost men and vis versa. I reject the idea of an age old intersex power struggle because of the total lack of evidence for it. Humans seem to be split into complementary genders who can only do better working together. (I know that sounds cheesy)
kokofan50 Your conception is utterly wrong. You're thinking of feminism as purely normative, when the fact of the matter is much of it is analytical. It's concerned with redressing inequities women face because they have, historically, faced subjugation compared to men. If you don't think that bears out evidentially you'd have to be delusional. It is, however, also an analytical framework, as I've said. Understanding gender dynamics is the central thrust of academic feminism, which must also apply to men. Given that almost all academic fields have been dominated by male voices historically, you could call it a response or an internal criticism to Western thought. That you haven't bothered to point any of that out suggests to me you haven't even bothered to watch the video. You also completely deflected my original point - do you not think a society can be judged based upon how it treats one gender compared to the other? This is an integral social dynamic to any society, at the very centre of its objective functions and subjective cultural values. The notion of "complimentary genders" it utterly irrelevant. It has nothing to do with the analysis of feminism discussed here or in the video. Unless of course you think women should not have self-determination, in which case you might as well out yourself as a blatant misogynist.
Also gender roles have a biological basis, women and men have different psychologies and intelligence, different dispositions to certain activities and aggression. And while I'm triggering people, it's entirely possible that different human populations, and ethnicities, have different capacities for intellect and other characteristics, diseases, etc. If men and women are the same, why is a female perspective needed? (not that there is a lack of female perspective, hard sciences are free from ideological bias in that sense).
That's the central issue with anti-fems: they'll accuse you of being driven by ideology all day long, but can never check their own ideological baggage at the door.
Just in case it wasn't clear, in all of these lectures I'm presenting the ideas as charitably as i can for pedagogical purposes. With a few exceptions where I specifically say otherwise, the ideas I put forward here are not necessarily ones that I agree with.
www.pnas.org/content/109/41/16474.full Implicit bias is a real problem in a lot of fields. I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss the idea that discrimination still exists.
127 respondents....... shocking that they had the balls to publish with such a low number of people. I'm appalled at the lack of intellectual honesty that went into this "research". As a comparison there was a study that looks (much more like a real one) done by two people on black names where the smallest total observed number is 165,226 www.nber.org/papers/w9938.pdf?new_window=1 here is some real data gathering. ((paper above linked to from this freakonomics.com/podcast/how-much-does-your-name-matter-a-new-freakonomics-radio-podcast/)) Does gender REALLY matter, as in, if all else being equal the "F" box is checked rather then the "M" box? well, perhaps someone will do a better job at combing though the data to find out, right now, the result size is simply to small.
Deconverted Man There's evidence to suggest that gender diversity within scientific communities is an aid rather than an impediment to producing well-rounded observations and more effective experiments. I think diverse representation that is well managed and structures that attempt to offset or remove obstacles can only be a good thing.
JE Hoyes is it better to enforce diversity or for it to arise naturally, if at all? If it can be shown that despite providing the means by which women and men are free to choose whichever career paths they want without barriers, in STEM, or anything else that the "representation" isn't diverse enough, then what do you suppose could or should be done? If any barriers exist and can be identified as such, then I'd prefer it being taken case by case, rather than generalizing it to all of academia and sciences, as unfounded blame for a problem that has yet to be shown to exist outside of studies with limited scope benefits no one. Rather it can and has actually caused significant harm in the form of enforced diversity.
