Abstract
Physics education reform movements should pay attention to feminist analyses of gender in the culture of physics for two reasons. One reason is that feminist analyses contribute to an understanding of a ‘chilly climate’ women encounter in many physics university departments. Another reason is that feminist analyses reveal that certain styles of doing science are predominant in the culture of physics. I introduce recent philosophical work in social epistemology to argue that the predominance of certain styles of doing science is not good for science. Scientific communities would benefit from greater diversity in styles of doing science.
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Notes
The notion of a ‘style of doing science’ is introduced to feminist science studies by Jane Roland Martin (1988). Martin (1988) argues that Evelyn Fox Keller’s (1983) account of Barbara McClintock’s scientific practice and June Goodfield’s (1981) account of ‘Anna Brito’s’ scientific practice are testimonies of certain styles of doing science (Anna Brito is a pseudonym for a Portuguese female scientist). Both McClintock’s and Brito’s styles of doing science are characterized by a structure of emotion, imagination, and experience which is connected to friendship and love. Thus, a style of doing science may be idiosyncratic as in the case of McClintock and Brito, or it may reflect a particular culture of science which is communicated in popular science literature, science fiction, biographies of scientists, and every-day interactions in science education and research. See Hacking (1992) for a history of the notion of ‘style’ in science studies.
To be precise, Solomon (2001) claims that we should give up the distinction between epistemic and non-epistemic factors. She suggests that we refer to all motivational factors with an epistemologically neutral term, ‘decision vector’ (2001, p 53). Yet, she retains a distinction between two types of decision vectors, empirical and non-empirical. According to her definitions, ‘empirical decision vectors are causes of preference for theories with empirical success, either success in general or one success in particular’ (2001, p 56), whereas ‘non-empirical decision vectors are other reasons or causes for choice’ (2001, p 56). However, it is not clear what status some of those values that have traditionally been deemed as ‘epistemic’, have in Solomon’s social empiricism. For example, Robert Klee criticizes Solomon for ignoring the epistemic role of consistency or ‘closure under logical consequences’ (Klee 2003, p 250). On the one hand, consistency seems to be a ‘non-empirical decision vector’ because it is a desideratum that we impose on our knowledge claims. On the other hand, consistency seems to have a different status from other ‘non-empirical decision vectors’ because it is derived from the value of truth. Insofar as theories in science are expected to be true, they are not allowed to include inconsistent statements. Also, Klee argues that we should inquire whether some theoretical values such as elegance and simplicity have a special status which distinguishes them from other ‘non-empirical decision vectors’ (2003, p 249).
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Acknowledgments
I wish to thank Cassandra Pinnick and K. Brad Wray for their comments on earlier versions of this paper. I am also grateful to two reviewers of Science and Education for their suggestions to improve the paper. Cathrine Hasse and the UPGEM project funded by the European Commission have provided me a valuable opportunity to discuss gender and physics.
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Rolin, K. Gender and physics: feminist philosophy and science education. Sci & Educ 17, 1111–1125 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11191-006-9065-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11191-006-9065-3