Here’s a comment which is interesting, if hard to actually engage with because of the difficulty of the subject matter:
You’re obviously aware of the arguments employed by feminists in the critique of the philosophy of science; that cultural values, in their view patriarchy, could unintentionally contaminate science by affecting how evidence is interpreted and what hypothesises are formed from it. This argument is usually combined with the more fundamental problem of using inductive logic in science, especially biology, and how any cultural norms could be mistaken for biological facts.
My question is how do you separate out the biases from the facts?
What makes you think that the lefts reservations about the studies into sex and race are the result of their own bias and not a legitimate acusation of bias within science? It is obviously not a totally improbable claim considering the long history of racist science in the two previous centuaries.
From my own lay mans knowledge of the subject I’ve got the impression the jury is still out on both innate sex difference and the genetic realities of race.
First, as I keep telling my liberal readers and friends there’s a deep denialism about sex differences that is ideologically motivated on the Left. For me the most obvious illustration of this is when people on the Left are quite happy to talk about sex differences. Here’s a very long article in The Guardian, Testosterone and high finance do not mix: so bring on the women Gender inequality has been an issue in the City for years, but now the new science of ‘neuroeconomics’ is proving the point beyond doubt: hormonally-driven young men should not be left alone in charge of our finances…. This was triggered by Michael Lewis’ speculation about the roots of the financial crisis in Iceland. To my knowledge Lewis did not get tarred and feathered as an ‘essentialist.’ But that’s because he followed Althouse’ rule: make sure your model of sex differences portrays males in an unflattering light.
But I don’t want to talk about racism and sexism in science. Rather, scientists tend to be liberal and atheist. How can the American public, a plural majority of whom are religious and conservative, trust the findings of a profession which is odds with them on matters of politics and God? Well, what’s the alternative. Do you want to go with faith healers and Flood geologists? Scientists are human, and science is a human enterprise, but as a culture and method toward understanding the world it’s about as good as you get in this world. Mind you, that’s a really low bar, but science gave us antibiotics and men on the moon. Not too shabby. By their fruit you will recognize them.
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