Values and Science: An Interdisciplinary Feminist Exploration

Abstract

This dissertation is an experiment in interdisciplinary feminist philosophy of science. It explores an extremely broad question—what is the relationship between science and social values? —by interweaving three families of methodological approaches, to produce three papers, each geared to a different audience.

In Chapter One, I consider the role of values in science through the lens of abstract ideals. Employing the tools and methods of analytic philosophy of science, I take a stand in an ongoing debate about what’s known as the ‘value-free ideal’ (VFI): the view that ideal science is ‘epistemically pure.’ In recent years, the VFI has come under vigorous attack. With many theorists rejecting the VFI, a space is left open for new ideals to guide science. I articulate an alternative ideal—what I term the ‘idiosyncrasy-free ideal’ (IFI)—that is motivated not by epistemic purity, but by intersubjectivity. I draw connections between the IFI and work in feminist philosophy of science, political philosophy and the history of science to argue for the potential of the IFI to fill the space left open by the fall of the VFI. With the IFI in hand, one can relinquish the commitment to epistemic purity, while maintaining a science that is objective and worthy of our trust.

In Chapter Two, I shift away from abstract ideals and delve into an in-depth case study focused on scientific measurement practices. I present a model of how values and norms come to play a role in scientific measurement through a comparative analysis of two human fertility metrics: semen analysis and ovarian reserve testing. Drawing heavily on the literature and methods of feminist science studies, I argue that fertility metrics reflect and enact different gendered imperatives of reproductive responsibility. In doing so, I explicate one mechanism by which racialized and gendered values, norms and ideologies come to be enacted in scientific practice at a basic quantitative level, with profound implications for those whose bodies are measured, and for collective understanding and public debates over the future of our species.

Chapter Three delves further into the roles of social values in the practice of fertility measurement, this time focusing on semen analysis. Geared towards a scientific audience, this chapter is a result of an interdisciplinary collaboration with members of the Harvard GenderSci Lab. We analyze a high-profile 2017 study by andrologist Hagai Levine and colleagues, which claims to show a greater than 50% decline in sperm counts among men from “Western” countries. In doing so, we identify and systematically question a set of shared value-laden assumptions with which sperm researchers approach sperm count measurement. We show how these assumptions—including, for example, the unquestioned choice to categorize data into “Western” vs “Other”—implicitly invoke powerful narratives around gender, sex, race, ethnicity, and anxieties about the future of the human species. In the best tradition of feminist scholarship, this chapter goes beyond critique; it offers a novel paradigm for sperm decline research, which we term the Sperm Count Biovariability hypothesis. This paradigm, we argue, facilitates improved research design and interpretive strategies for investigating the reproductive health and bodies of people of all genders.