Science\u2019s greatest myth is that it doesn\u2019t encode bias and is always self-correcting. In fact, science has often made its living from encoding and justifying bias, and refusing to do anything about the fact that the data says something\u2019s wrong.<\/em><\/p>\nEvidence is Magic!<\/strong><\/p>\nI\u2019ve always called the idea that scientists and science fans \u201cjust follow the evidence\u201d a piece of self-serving dogma that shows more intellectual dishonesty than objectivity. That facts and evidence have some sort of power to transcend cultural context and bias is truly magical thinking. If we concede that scientists often correct the work of previous researchers, let\u2019s also admit that far more often, shoddy or biased research survives because it panders to the prejudices of an institution and system that inherently advantage males. The history of science is the history of research objectives in a male-dominated society. Says Prescod-Weinstein:<\/p>\n
[O]ur scientific educations almost never talk about the invention of whiteness and the invention of race in tandem with the early scientific method which placed a high value on taxonomies\u2014which unsurprisingly and almost certainly not coincidentally supported prevailing social views. The standard history of science that is taught to budding scientists is that during the Enlightenment, Europe went from the dark ages to, well, being enlightened by a more progressive mindset characterized by objective \u201cscience.\u201d It is the rare scientific education that includes a simultaneous conversation about the rise of violent, imperialist globalization during the same time period. Very few curricula acknowledge that some European scientific \u201cdiscoveries\u201d were in fact collations of borrowed indigenous knowledge. And far too many universally call technology progress <\/em>while failing to acknowledge that it has left us in a dangerously warmed climate. Much of the science that resulted from this system, conducted primarily by white men, is what helped teach us that women were the inferior sex.<\/blockquote>\nLet\u2019s talk about the way we idealize science. If science is so \u201cself-correcting,\u201d why do scientists and scientifically literate laypeople in 2017 still pay lip service to this nonsense? Can there be any more persuasive proof that we don\u2019t \u201cfollow evidence where it leads,\u201d but rather lead it where we want it to go?<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It\u2019s time we acknowledge that science is still being used to denigrate women. Bro Science The brouhaha over the Google memo stoked the paranoia of all the science bros: right-wing dung nozzle Quillette ran an article called \u201cThe Google Memo: Four Scientists Respond,\u201d in which the Google memo got dusted off and praised for its […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3054,"featured_media":3471,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60,315,19],"tags":[394,226,398],"class_list":["post-3472","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-critical-thinking","category-culture","category-science","tag-bias","tag-science","tag-sexism"],"yoast_head":"\n
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