Political Pressures can Effects on the Growth of Knowledge

Some political pressures can have negative effects on the growth of knowledge, while others can have positive effects. Examples of some positive effects of other political movements on science are the roles played by the environmental movements, AIDS activism, the race-based civil rights movement, and, most recently, the nutrition and anti-smoking movements. Attention, also, to issues that concern women’s movements can enhance our understanding of the philosophical and social aspects of science and technology. Consider two changes in the traditional philosophy of science to which women’s movements have contributed. The first has to do with the assumption of neutrality in the research process. Is maximizing the objectivity of research always advanced by maximizing the social neutrality of research processes? The neutrality ideal is Tag Heuer Replica Watches maximally effective when it is invoked in contexts where social beliefs differ among members of the scientific community. But how is it useful in detecting social assumptions shared by an entire scientific commutate — women and men alike — such as assumptions about women’s biological inferiority? In such cases it takes political involvement to move scientific institutions to question prevailing assumptions. Moreover, the neutrality ideal cannot recognize or provide resources for distinguishing between social or political assumptions that tend to obstruct the growth of knowledge and those that could advance it. We need “strong objectivity” to detect the most foundational assumptions that shape our own belief systems. In a related way, attention to women’s concerns has helped to reveal the value of cognitive diversity in the scientific process. Just as biodiversity is invaluable for human well-being, so, too, is cognitive diversity. Few any longer question women’s ability to apply the scientific method or to organize complex research projects, even if they do sometimes approach their work in ways less favored by their male colleagues. The human intellectual repertoire consists of many styles and many ways of organizing the production of Replica Omega Seamaster knowledge. There exists no justifiable scientific or philosophic reason to restrict them to the small numbers that have been favored at particular times and places. “The” scientific method can be enhanced by our appreciation of the wealth of intellectual resources to be gained by valuing and promoting cognitive diversity. “Women’s” issues matter to women in science and technology fields, and in society at large. I have suggested how they also matter to the sciences as such, in ways perhaps initially unexpected. The resources that women’s issues make available to the sciences have not been fully realized. Too often women’s interests in and desires for knowledge are compromised to satisfy competing economic or political agendas. Often they are watered down or cooped and the business of science and technology institutions continues with little change. Moreover, as long as poverty, racism, environmental destruction, and global injustices prevail, women, as well as men, will not realize the full benefits of science and technology. We can at least hope that the gains made in institutional practices and in the growth of knowledge Cartier Replica during the last three decades, the result of positive interaction between women’s movements and scientific and technological institutions — will persist.