Modeling the Gender Politics in Science

Abstract

Feminist science scholars need models of science that allow feminist accounts, not only of the inception and reception of scientific theories, but of their content as well.I argue that a "Network Model," properly modified, makes clear theoretically how race, sex and class considerations can influence the content of scientific theories. The adoption of the iicorpuscular philosophy" by Robert Boyle and other Puritan scientists during the English Civil War offers us a good case on which to test such a model. According to these men, the minute corpuscles constituting the physical world are dead, not aliwe; passiwe, not actiwe. I argue that they chose the principle that matter is passive in part because its contrary, the principle that matter is aliwe and self-mowing, had a radical social meaning and use to the women and men working for progressive change in mid-sewenteenth century England.Whenever she tells a story, the storyteller has a story model, one that outlines how a good story should go. When Marie Boas told the story of Robert Boyle's contributions to physics and chemistry in the midseventeenth Century, she put her account of Boyle's life in a chapter separate from chapters describing his scientific achievements (Boas 1958). In her biography we discover that Boyle (1626-1691) was the youngest son of the fabulously wealthy, unscrupulous Earl of Cork. Old Cork was killed defending his holdings in Hypatia vol. 3 , no. 1 (Spring 1988). 0 by Elizabeth Potter.

The Entanglement of Gender and Physics

“…Their work was highly celebrated for showing the influence of social currents on physical chemistry, although their analysis ignored gender questions and that Boyle actively engaged in the gender debate of his time. Potter, in responding to Marie Boas Hall (Boas, 1958) and Rose-Mary Sargent (1995), worked on that question and argued that English notions of class and gender of the 17 th century influenced Boyle's choice of a corpuscular or mechanical interpretation of the experiments with the air-pump, which were inscribed into Boyle's law of gases (Berner, 2004: 99-102;Potter, 1988;). Potter's interpretation, however, was discussed within the feminist discourse of philosophers of science as only possible but not truly evident (e.g., Rolin, 1999: 512;Sargent, 2004).…”

Values and the scientific culture of behavior analysis

“…Longino (1989) refers to these personal, social, and cultural influences as contextual values, and she reminds us that the rules of evidence of scientific inquiry are not adequate to screen out their influence. Although a scientist can make explicit value commitments and still produce good science, our focus should be on examining the assumptions scientists actually hold when they decide between conflicting generalizations (Potter, 1988). Let us consider as an example Longino's collaborative work with biologist Ruth Doell.…”