There is a middle path!

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(although some contructivists would question if we really know what game it is that we are watching. and if we cant know what game it is then why be so obsessed with worrying about it?)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1dgrvlWML4&feature=player_embedded#watch-main-area

Another view that could fall under the constructivist critique of science is that of Feminist Science Studies…here is an excerpt that shows how apparently pure science can be unwittingly imbued with gender biases that obscure and confuse the results of scientific findings. Some folks in class wondered what a constructivist critique of science produced. In the instances that follow we see that a feminist critique can not only point out confusions but lead to better and more robust angles of inquiry.

From Frequently Asked Questions About Feminist Science Studies by the Association of American Colleges and Universities.

“An example of one of the benefits of this exchange is the rich investigation into the meaning and nature of biological sex differences (female or male) and the socially constructed definitions of gender (femininity and masculinity) that vary widely across time, place, income, and race. For example, in “The Egg and the Sperm: How Science Has Constructed a Romance Based on Stereotypical Male-Female Roles” (1991), Emily Martin shows how scientists have superimposed cultural sex stereotypes inappropriately onto the process of fertilization, resulting in inaccurate descriptions of cell and molecular interactions, faulty understandings of the physiology of fertilization, and skewed research priorities. Feminist scholarship also examines ways in which ideas about sex and gender have influenced our real and imagined worlds, which Donna Haraway explores in illuminating ways in Primate Vision: Gender, Race, and Nature in the World of Modern Sciences (1989). In this work, Haraway investigates how scientific findings in primatology have been deeply constrained and even flawed by gendered and racialized notions. She argues, for example, that before the 1970s primatologists unwittingly imposed their gendered template on their scientific work, leading them to study only the behavior of male primates or the adult female only in a mother-child relationship. As a result, they developed an inaccurate understanding of primate behavior, lacking attention to the role of female primates, including the extent of their sexual choice, aggressiveness, or even polyandrous behavior.”

Here is a review by Richard Rorty on a book covering the Science Wars. Rorty gets to not only share his own views on the controversy but also those of the book being reviewed. Notice how Rorty bristles at connotations of “social construction” or “relativism.”

One of the major problems with framing a debate is that generally the status quo sets the parameters of argument, much to the chagrin of the other principles. In the Science Wars we see this exemplified in the very way in which Brown (and many many others) poses the debate as between two camps: the scientists and others who claim science unveils some sort of socially non-contingent “truth” and another camp of “constructivists”. Rorty lets us know that is too simple of a story.

What do you think? Do these types of links help flesh out the debate? Let me know how I can help flesh out the conversation we are having in class and at home.

This is a link to the book with his core ideas on education and how it relates to educating a public of citizens invested in a democracy. His own (dated in some ways and entirely prescient in others) ideas on what science is and what aspects of it need to be disseminated to a responsible citizenry are MUST reads. To put those ideas into context though you should read some of the other chapters that deal with what any ideal formal “education” should do.

Do these reflect some issues we are having now or is Dewey just outdated? Have we as a country gotten over these problems? Or is Dewey just blowing some idealistic smoke?

I will post more on Dewey later to give more background but for right now just give a read.

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Democracy_and_Education

Although some of what you find in here is journalism MANY of the contributors are known philosophers of science, sociologists of science, theorists…and the lists goes on what they are calling themselves today. Odds are, if you find a perspective you enjoy or want to research more in depth you will be able to use the library, online, and journal databases to find what else those authors have written on the issue.

Anyway, I will be choosing a few articles from the web over the next few days that have a particular stance on the science wars. Some may be on the extreme end of the social constructivist camp (Andrew Ross) and others might be on the other end of the spectrum holding science to be our only guide for ultimate TRUTH (Steven Weinberg). And the rest may or may not fit along that continuum.

Lets us all remember though that many social constructivists including our modern post-structural theorists would question most any continuity in intellectual meta-narratives in this fractured post-modern world. (if this sentence doesnt make sense, dont worry- Sokal doesnt get it either)

http://lib.sou.edu/search~S0?/X%28s:sokal+hoax%29&SORT=D/X%28s:sokal+hoax%29&SORT=D&SUBKEY=%28s%3Asokal%20hoax%29/1,2,2,B/l856~b1427245&FF=X%28s:sokal+hoax%29&SORT=D&2,2,,1,0

Not exactly, the big Pharma company Merck actually paid someone to make a phony journal to publish findings on Merck drugs that were less than scientifically accurate (read: not peer reviewed) The above link is the story from a blog on bioethics.

I will be linking to a bunch of journal articles that are free on academic search premier site you can find on the library webpage. If you dont know it you need to ask because that is the caliber of article you should be looking for to back up your arguments.

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