Department of Self-Fulfilling Prophecies, Women in Science Edition
posted by Frank Pasquale
Recently Ben Barres, a professor of neurobiology, gave a fascinating talk at Harvard titled “Some Reflections on the Dearth of Women in Science.” His talk was based on his Nature article “Does Gender Matter” (to achievement in the sciences). I found the talk an extraordinary confirmation of my earlier worries about self-fulfilling prophecies and bias in the blogosphere.
Barres was responding to Steven Pinker’s book The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature, which, according to Barres, argues that men are innately “more aggressive and ambitious” and women innately “feel emotions more strongly” and “prefer to take care of children.” Barres explored how Rosalyn Barnett and Carolyn Rivers’ book Same Difference: How Gender Myths are Hurting our Relationships, Our Children, and Our Jobs extensively undermined such ideas, exploring the numerous “nurture” based rationales for differences Pinker saw as innate. Barres recited several studies evidencing “gender prejudice” that influences choices from the very earliest stages of child development. His slide show (available here) also raised serious questions about Pinker’s neo-Darwinian agenda, tracing bias in it all the way back to Darwin’s 1871 Descent of Man, which argued that “The chief distinction in the intellectual powers of the two sexes is shown by man’s attaining to a higher eminence, in whatever he takes up, than can woman.” (In 1985, Richard Lewontin responded that “biological determinists have never found any credible concrete basis for such differences.”).
After punching various holes in Pinker’s scientific program, Barres concluded that “When faculty tell their students that they are innately inferior based on race or gender they are crossing a line that should not be crossed –the line that divides responsible free speech from verbal violence.” His comments bring to mind a struggle for the soul of academia–whether the university is defined by either a) a libertarian willingness to entertain *any* idea or b) a communitarian belief that academics are part of a larger process of social inquiry designed to improve the world. The former idea is a tempting for many, but when we try to recognize the range of research programs that are actually worthwhile to accomplish, we quickly see that such rules of recognition are themselves parasitic on situated concepts of what is important to us and what aspects of our tradition are most worth promoting. Barres points out that the mere act of setting an agenda of inquiry can itself not merely manifest, but also promote, the very biases the inquirer claims merely to be exploring.
Consider, for instance, an academic department set up to explore Pinker’s hypothesis that “Religion is a desperate measure that people resort to when the stakes are high and they have exhausted the usual techniques for the causation of success.” Or the question of whether academics should study the propriety of torture in the service of national security. We may all want to pat ourselves on the back for being brave enough to consider such inquires. (In the same manner as, say, Pinker appears to be proud to consider dangerous ideas.) Yet as Raimond Gaita has argued, sometimes an “open mind” can also be a (morally) empty one. Gaita argues that “Society is in fact defined by what is undiscussable.”
May 5, 2008 at 9:55 am
Posted in: Feminism and Gender, Philosophy of Social Science
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Responses (12)
Daniel S. Goldberg - May 5, 2008 at 11:05 am
Fascinating, as usual.
Orin Kerr - May 5, 2008 at 1:16 pm
Frank,
Can you share your views on how we distinguish “dangerous ideas” and “lines that should not be crossed” on one hand from the lines that can be crossed on the other? GIven that there is usually quite dramatic disagreement on where that line should be, I’m not sure which set of lines you have in mind.
Also, who decides where the line should be drawn? In the case of public institutions, for example, the natural source of authority to make these decisions would be the state legislatures that created and funded the universities. Perhaps state legislatures should promulgate a list of what ideas they think are dangerous and out of bounds and therefore forbidden in their universities?
A.J. Sutter - May 5, 2008 at 2:46 pm
I think you neglected to mention, for the benefit of those who might not follow your links right away, that Dr Barres is a transgendered man, having been born and, as I recall, having spent the early years of his professional career, as a female. This gives his perspective extra weight.
Apropos of questionable academic departments, see Alan Steinweis’s “Studying the Jew: Scholarly Antisemitism in Nazi Germany” (Harvard UP 2006). But this seems rather exceptional — today, is the question really the one you posed, of setting up whole departments to test specific hypotheses like Pinker’s?
At the investigator level, certainly research questions often implictly are based on the investigator’s biases. This happens in the field of economics every day, for example, with its reifications of demand curves and similar concepts. But more generally, it seems to fit in with the Kuhnian notion of “paradigm”, don’t you think? If you believe in deferents and epicycles, you will look to prove things about them, much as 19th Century astronomers tried to prove things about the vegetation and canals on Mars.
So what distinguishes the sorts of “dangerous ideas” mentioned by Pinker? Is it that one knows, when asking them, that they are socially sensitive? But turn it around: what if the prevailing ethos were to believe in the inferiority of people of a given gender or ethnicity, and your “dangerous idea” would be to question whether this is so? (Or if you prefer, what if you are like the scientists in the Planet of the Apes who first recognized that there could be intelligent humans?) It’s hard to distinguish a priori when someone is a hero or an amoral provocateur for asking such questions.
For such a priori sorting, one probably has to resort to some other principle, such as (roughly off the top of my head, and subject to refinement and suggestions) that questions whose answers would be unduly discouraging to a whole group of people, or would lead to their being disadvantaged in society, are not the kinds of questions one wants to ask or answer. (We can argue about “unduly”: e.g., it might discourage smokers to hear that smoking causes disease, but at least there is some remedial or mitigating action open to them, namely quitting.)
That’s a principle based on my personal notion of a democracy, which I hope many other people share. But on the Planet of the Apes, most sentient primates might consider that a pretty stupid principle (though I’d like to think I’d be more like Dr Cornelius). So I don’t think one can get away from individual moral choice and responsibility in this conundrum. Legislation seems unlikely to be the answer. And since I’m sure there are very few universities without amoral faculty members, there will always be creepy folks asking questionable questions. Let’s hope there will always be other academics and citizens to call them out on it, as Barres is doing.
Frank - May 5, 2008 at 4:26 pm
A.J.: I think what you’ve said is an excellent starting point: “that questions whose answers would be unduly discouraging to a whole group of people, or would lead to their being disadvantaged in society, are not the kinds of questions one wants to ask or answer.” I would hope we can all agree that after the repeated scurrilous attacks on minority groups/women in the guise of academic inquiry, the burden of proof for someone proposing such a theory nowadays is extremely high. And we also might agree that there are many, many research programs that could better be pursued, and question the objectivity of a scientific system that nevertheless neglects them in favor of the minority-disadvantaging theories.
Orin–I’d welcome hearing your theories about where the “line” is. Maybe, in a Rawlsian way, we can use certain fixed points of our considered convictions (such as the repulsiveness of the Pastor Hagee comments here:
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/05/the-hagee-files.html, and the types of over-the-line beliefs Gaita describes in his podcast) to get a sense of this line. The key point I’m developing here is that certain lines of inquiry themselves help produce the result they claim merely to be testing. Consider the process described here:
http://www.concurringopinions.com/archives/2007/09/the_unbeatable.html
Orin Kerr - May 5, 2008 at 11:10 pm
Frank,
I don’t know if I’m the right person to offer a line, as I tend to find the libertarian model pretty appealing. I guess the reason why I want you to draw a line is that I’m skeptical that lines can be drawn well. For example, is it permissible for a privacy law scholar to argue that privacy is silly and shouldn’t be valued? Is it permissible for a person to write about civil liberties and argue that civil liberties are not important? Or do you think we as an academic community should only accept people who favor significant privacy and civil liberties positions?
Frank - May 6, 2008 at 8:36 am
Orin, I’m afraid I’ve been to far too many events where the libertarian “argument” essentially boils down to an expression of skepticism and a fear of slippery slopes. “Silence the holocaust-deniers and soon you’ll be silencing critics of Israel!” or “Regulate dominant search engines and soon you’ll be regulating everything everyone does online!”
This effort at shifting the burden of proof is a clever rhetorical strategy. I’d take it more seriously if it were extended to libertarians’ own ideological allies.
I have no specific burden to develop a grand theory of line-drawing here–responding to a few concrete cases and giving reasons in those cases is enough. Just as an administrative body can engage in adjudication as well as rulemaking, we can identify egregious violations without crafting some framework that promises to pigeonhole every case in the future.
Orin Kerr - May 6, 2008 at 11:59 am
Frank,
Interesting. From my perspective, I’ve been to far too many events in which the communitarian argument was a proxy for censorship and control by the dominant majority. The fact that you put the word argument in scare quotes when characterizing the other side — the libertarian approach is not an argument, but rather an “argument” — doesn’t exactly inspire confidence.
frank cross - May 6, 2008 at 12:39 pm
I fear this suggestion would suppress science wildly. Certainly, we would abandon research into genetics, as it will inevitably discourage some.
But I think the main problem with the proposal is the reverse. Many people have negative beliefs about the abilities of women. If we don’t study the question, those beliefs will be unchallenged. Unwillingness to study suggests to me fear about what the scientific answer may be. I have more confidence in the abilities of women and am not afraid about the findings of study.
And if society is defined by what is undiscussable, consider the possibility that equality is what is considered undiscussable.
Frank - May 6, 2008 at 2:20 pm
Orin: The fact that you imply that my approach amounts to “censorship and control by the dominant majority” “doesn’t exactly inspire confidence” that a dialogue is constructive. (Though we might have an interesting conversation on the fractal problem here–what some would categorize as a dominant “PC” majority in academe is often a pretty beleaguered minority in the larger culture.)
Following up on my earlier comment, all I would ask is that you give me a better sense of why the principles apparent in my (and Sutter’s) account of the particular cases we treat would lead to, say, the undiscussability of the view that “privacy is silly and shouldn’t be valued.”
to Frank Cross: In the abstract, yes, one could imagine a society where equality is undiscussable. But I am concerned about preserving the present (fragile) consensus about equality.
Orin Kerr - May 6, 2008 at 5:07 pm
Frank,
I’m just trying to understand your position, which is why I asked about it in the first place. I asked about privacy and civil liberties because I thought there’s a possibility that your perspective on the issue might go something like this:
*********
Privacy and civil liberties are the foundation of freedom and democracy; someone who thinks that they have no value is a would celebrate torture and deny personhood. If we have any moral compass in our society, it is that torture and intentional cruelty are wrongful; if we stand for anything, it must be that a person is entitled to his thoughts, and an environment in which he can retain them free from state intervention. So surely we cannot welcome voices that deny all value to civil liberties and the sanctity of the person. Why should we let someone voice these views and do verbal violence to our community when we are trying to improve the world? Why shall we watch as our community suffers?
*************
I’m not sure if you agree with this or find it completely absurd — that’s why I was trying to ask you about your position. If you agree with it, then that’s why I worry about the censorship issue; I think we would all be the better for it if there were a much wider range of arguments made and debated in the area of civil liberties and privacy than the narrow band we have.
As for your point about fractals, I think you are right: Academia a highly localized majority that at the same time is a minority in society at large. (Although given that it is generally wealthy, elite, and highly connected group with tremendous influence, I don’t think of it as “beleagured.”)
A.J. Sutter - May 6, 2008 at 10:32 pm
I’m not a libertarian, though I’m more in agreement with Orin on this than otherwise. As I mentioned before, this is largely an issue of personal moral obligation. That doesn’t mean I think it’s purely a matter of individual taste — I do think that in many situations in this context there can be a “right” and “wrong” — but that it is incumbent on individuals to do the right thing. It’s vain to try to legislate morality, if I may coin a phrase, in this situation at least.
I think that in the kinds of research-related cases we’re talking about in this thread, it’s up to academics (etc.) to do the right thing, and other academics (etc.) to call them out on it when they disagree. That is what public debate is about. I think this process worked well in the cases of William Shockley and Richard Herrnstein (each with racial theories of I.Q.), for example. Each spoke freely, and died under a cloud.
Yet I admit, I may have a “line” that gets crossed when it comes to stuff like Holocaust denial. Which is to say that my position on this is not “arithromorphic,” with clear boundaries, to use a phrase from N. Georgescu-Roegen. G-R’s distinction between “arithromorphic” and “dialectical” categories is a useful one to remember in discussions like this one. (See “The Entropy Law and the Economic Process” (Harvard UP 1971).) Framing the discussion in terms of lines and where to draw them doesn’t appreciate the inherent complexity of the issue involved.
As to the question of “‘argument’”, even the best arguments, data sets, etc. can be taken out of context and misapplied. A good rhetorician of any political stripe can twist anything. One of my personal favorite examples being Uncle Milton’s slogan, “Free to Choose”.
As for Frank Cross’s comment about genetics: Please refer back to my gloss on “unduly”. But if you are thinking that all science is morally neutral, that is being naive about scientists and about how science is used. The life of Nobel laureate Fritz Haber is a good illustration. (OTOH, maybe you’re not thinking that.)
As for the “fractal” stuff, I think both Orin & Frank P. are mistaken: a fractal looks the same at all scales. The appropriate analogy you’re both grasping for is frog in a well.
jerry - July 30, 2008 at 4:26 am
With all due respect Professor Pasquale, a quick glance at your CV and I see no undergraduate or graduate experience of yours in biology. I am not sure there is any reason for you to feel you can understand either Pinker’s or River’s articles beyond that of any layman.
Regarding agendas then, you explicitly mention Pinker’s neo-Darwinian agenda. Presumably you are saying his agenda somehow affects his work.
But to be honest, with my layman’s understanding of biology I have no idea what you mean of his neo-darwinian agenda. The wikipedia tells me you mean “evolution”, but somehow your use of agenda tells me you think there is something dark at play.
Can you please clarify what you mean by “neo-darwinian” agenda?
And then, what is River’s agenda? How come you didn’t mention her and Barnett’s clear agenda and how that affects your interpretation of their work?
I can’t tell if you’re being naive, or purposefully obtuse to support your own agenda, but this post of yours rings hollow.
I obviously came in in the middle of some long conversation and I am faced with either never saying anything as I try to find the first thread, or discussing what my current thoughts are and hoping you can explain.
But my read of this is that you are making some plea, some argument for why self-censorship, and speech (and thought) policing is justified. In this case apparently because it leads to a greater good.
I assume I am way way off and mischaracterizing your intent, but that is the impression I get.
Self-censorship and science. I am certain that’s not what you are discussing.
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