Science and Society: how societal beliefs and values can inform good science

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• Science and Society how societal beliefs and
  values can inform good science
• Ape Genius how views of non-human animals,
  including other primates, shaped what was
  observed for centuries and how this is changing.
• Gould on 19th century anthropology, psychology,
  biology how social views about innate
  differences between alleged biological groups
  shaped scientific hypotheses, auxiliary
  assumptions, and observations
• Science and Society Are there (should there be)
  ethical constraints on scientific research?
• Secrets of the Wild Child The Case of Genie

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Science and its social context How society can
affect science

• How social context can inform (good) science
• Gould on 19th century craniometry and
  anthropology class and race differences.
• Gould on 19th century craniometry and psychology
  gender/sex differences.

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How society can affect science

• How social context can inform (good) science
• Things we have studied to consider
• The presence and role of auxiliary assumptions
• The role of systems or bodies of theories or
  hypotheses in generating If H, then I
• The role of paradigms in setting up a
  puzzle-solving tradition
• The theory-ladenness of observation

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How society can affect science

• Are the only relevant auxiliary assumptions,
  bodies of theories, paradigms, etc. internal to
  science or can they include social beliefs?
• When are Broca and colleagues studying a
  biological basis for (allegedly) innate
  differences between races, classes, and sexes?
  What is the specific historical and cultural
  context?

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How social context can inform (good?) science

• S.J. Gould, Wide Hats and Narrow Minds
• The hypothesis intelligence is caused by brain
  size (larger is better!)
• The players Paul Broca
• Founder of The Anthropological Society and
  Renowned Craniologist
• Players continued Louis Gratiolet
• Comparative anatomist

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How social context can inform (good?) science

• Broca Among the questions heretofore discussed
  within the Anthropological Society, none is equal
  in interest and importance to the question before
  us now. . . .
• The great importance of craniology has struck
  anthropologists with such force that many among
  us have neglected the other parts of our science
  in order to devote ourselves almost exclusively
  to the study of skulls. ...
• In such data, we hope to find some information
  relevant to the intellectual value of the various
  human races.

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How social context can inform (good?) science

• S.J. Gould, Wide Hats and Narrow Minds
• The players contd (the late!) Cuvier
• The crucial test
• The size of his hat

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How social context can inform (good?) science

• Goulds bottom line
• On the surface, this tale seems ludicrous. The
  thought of France's finest anthropologists
  arguing passionately about the meaning of a dead
  colleague's hat could easily provoke the most
  misleading and dangerous inference of all about
  historya view of the past as a domain of naive
  half-wits, the path of history as a tale of
  progress, and the present as sophisticated and
  enlightened.

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How social context can inform (good?) science

• Goulds bottom line
• But if we laugh with derision, we will never
  understand. ..

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How social context can inform (good?) science

• What do we fail to understand about their world
  if we laugh at this example?
• Long standing beliefs (beginning with the Ancient
  Greeks!) about the inferiority of women, slaves,
  servants
• Given a relatively monolithic science community
  in terms of gender, ethnicity, social class it
  was easy to take such differences as a starting
  point, rather than something to be established
• Given restrictions on education opportunities for
  members of groups regarded as inferior, it was
  hard to establish ones intellectual equality

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How social context can inform (good?) science

• A then current paradigm, or current auxiliary
  assumptions, or current system of theory as
  background and as shaping observations
• Among the questions heretofore discussed within
  the Anthropological Society, none is equal in
  interest and importance to the question before us
  now. . . .
• Discovering the intellectual worth of the
  various human races.

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How social context can inform (good?) science

• S.J. Gould, Womens Brains
• The hypothesis Women had smaller brains than men
  and, like it or not, could not equal men in
  intelligence.
• Players Broca, Le Bon, and others.
• The tests head/skull measuring of contemporary
  women in autopsies, and skull measuring of fossil
  remains.

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How social context can inform (good?) science

• Sex differences
• Broca Anthropometrists studiers of human body
  size are working very hard to measure with
  scientific certitude the inferiority of women
• Broca There is no faith, however respectable,
  no interest, however legitimate, which must not
  accommodate itself to the progress of human
  knowledge and bend before truth.
• Broca (et al) Sad to say, but we must, that
  womens smaller brain size renders them inferior
  to men.

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How social context can inform (good?) science

• Goulds argument some of Brocas numbers are
  impeccable
• I have the greatest respect for Brocas
  meticulous procedure in the measurement of
  autopsied brains. His numbers are sound.
• But
• Numbers by themselves do nothing. All depends on
  what you do with them.

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How social context can inform (good?) science

• Goulds conclusions some of Brocas numbers are
  impeccable but
• He did not take into account the age of the women
  whose brain he autopsied
• The number of ancient skulls on which he based
  his argument that mens brains are now bigger
  than womens because of their need for
  intelligence to survive and provide, was way too
  small.
• And what if womens brains are smaller on average
  simply because their bodies are smaller? And
  thus have the same ratio of body size/brain size
  as men?

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How social context can inform (good?) science

• Brocas response to such queries
• We might ask if the small size of the females
  brain depends exclusively upon the small size of
  her body as some colleagues ask.
• But we must not forget than women are, on the
  average, a little less intelligent than men, a
  difference which we should not exaggerate but
  which is, nonetheless, real.
• That they are less intelligent was supposed to be
  what he was establishing not assuming!

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How social context can inform (good?) science

• Gould, again, trying to understand their world,
  and his bottom line in the essay
• To appreciate the social role of Broca and his
  school, we must recognize that his statements
  about the brains of women do not reflect an
  isolated prejudice toward a singular
  disadvantaged group.
• They must be weighed in the context of a general
  theory that supported contemporary social
  distinctions as biologically ordained.

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How social context can inform (good?) science

• Contemporary lessons?
• If we dont take past scientists to be dimwits,
  and we recognize that the human brain hasnt
  changed, then we need to consider how if at all,
  in our own time and world, social beliefs and
  context can impact (good) science.
• Exhibit A The Bell Curve
• Exhibit B Larry Summers when president of
  Harvard!

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What ethical responsibilities (if any) are
attendant to the practice of science?

• Recall the norms
• The autonomy of science
• Knowledge is a good for its own sake
• The case the discovery of a so-called feral
  child in California
• The scientific question Were Chomsky and other
  linguists correct that there is a critical
  window for language acquisition, beyond which
  language cant be learned.

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What ethical responsibilities (if any) are
attendant to the practice of science?

• Genie as a natural experiment to study the
  question of whether there is a critical window
  for a childs acquisition of language after
  which, it is too late to learn a language.
• The players linguists, psychologists, social
  workers, social agencies, Genie (!) and her
  mother
• Did those studying Genie protect her well being?
  Suffer from rescue fantasies that motivated too
  much attention to teaching her language and too
  little to the other needs she had?
• In this case, was/is the knowledge to be gained
  a good in itself that trumped ethical
  questions?