Blog #7: Postmodernity and the diminution of science

What postmodern thought has done to science is revolutionary. It has successfully cut down to size what was hitherto a monolithic system of generating and propagating knowledge in vogue since Newton—a system that was itself a revolution against a pre-scientific but also monolithic belief system based on Church authority. In the postmodern world, everything is in question, including long-held scientific beliefs and prescriptions.

What it has brought about is a more inclusive notion of science, or a science that is not strictly speaking demarcated between the hard and soft sciences. Arriving at a consensus is “outmoded” and even suspect, says Lyotard. We now see natural scientists cooperating with social scientists in undertaking localized studies, for example. Environmentalists would readily acknowledge that natural science won’t be enough to explain environmental degradation; a socioeconomic survey of the community would have to be conducted to get the full context of the problem.

Within the social sciences themselves, we see a movement away from pure quantification and toward mixed methodologies. There is recognition that mathematical modelling cannot fully capture the complexity of human behavior, in which case qualitative methodologies like unstructured interviews will be more appropriate. The social sciences are not exact. To demand rigor of all research in the field, in my view, unjustifiably excludes valid analysis of the human condition drawn from non-probabilistic data gathering processes. This is dogma that needs to be dethroned in academia.

This is not to say, however, that “anything goes.” Science may no longer be the imposing edifice it once was, but it remains a logic behind the knowledge-creation process. Hollinger in fact makes it clear that “Coming to terms with postmodernism does not mean throwing out everything in the classic body of writings, but finding ways to make old and new ideas work together in specific contexts.” 

And unless postmodernism finds a place in the social sciences, the social sciences risk irrelevance and even their very existence, he warns.

Ironically, what bestows the postmodernist view of science its potency is at the same time the source of its weakness. It can shout down views that have the audacity to lay claim to authority and the ability to set the norm. It can speak out confidently against intellectual hegemony, undermining its proponents by dissecting their motivations and exposing their internal politics and hidden biases. It can deconstruct.

It is, however, but one “-ism” in an entire section of “-isms” in the wide open marketplace of ideas. On the one hand it can pull the rug from under a very comfortable and established norm. On the other, it can be dismissed as an agent of anarchy and therefore dangerous.

The issues raised by postmodernism on the practice of science, as Hollinger points out, are here to stay. But so are long-held and revered beliefs, practices, alliances, prejudices. Valid or not, these will continue to stand in the way of movements to abolish traditions, reconstruct society, and redefine human institutions.

Skeptics should thus not be begrudged for perceiving science as being used to pursue political ends, in the same way that these political actors are free to debunk and dismiss what they might also perceive to be a misuse of science. Science can be used by competing political actors for their pet agendas, some of which are extreme and radical. Fortunately the public now has a greater capacity to make such distinctions. It is now a battle for hearts and minds. It might have always been.

Blog #6: Science and the sexes

Science is masculine. The history of scientific achievement was written by men. Galileo almost single-handedly developed the scientific method. In astronomy and physics, his tool was mathematical analysis. His inventions had military applications. Other pioneers of modern science were in characteristically male occupations. Mendeleev, who formulated the periodic table, was a chemist. Benjamin Franklin was a politician. Newton, Ohm, and Einstein were university professors and educated fellow males. Michael Faraday and Blaise Pascal’s inventions vastly influenced engineering and physics. Charles Darwin, father of evolution, was a geologist. Nicolaus Copernicus, Roger Bacon, and Gregor Mendel were Catholic clerics.

Even in the Philippines, the gender gap in science is wide. In the roster of National Scientists, the highest state honor for science that is equivalent to the Order of National Artists, males outnumber females, 28 to 11. In that list, the females were truly trailblazers who had to exceed the achievements of their male colleagues. Fe del Mundo (said to be the first woman admitted to Harvard Medical School) and Encarnacion Alzona (the first Filipina to obtain a Ph.D.) broke the class ceiling, so to speak. Other Filipina pioneers in science worked in feminine disciplines. The first Filipina physician, Honoria Acosta-Sison, worked as an obstetrics assistant (despite her American medical degree). Mercedes Concepcion, a sociologist and demographer, was tapped by the Vatican in the 1960s to lend her expertise to the birth control commission.

Why are there so few women achievers in science? Is it because of biology? Lack of aptitude? Institutional and professional bias? The answer is a combination of these and other factors, as argued by one scholar. And yet when women made their mark in science, their achievements were transformative and their professional practice was refreshingly emotive. Marie Curie, in her time dismissed as simply her husband’s assistant and whose Nobel Prize was even called to question, donated her prize money and chose to forego of her patents to support scientific research. 

Marie Curie, the first woman to win the Nobel Prize
(from nobelprize.org)

Institutional bias cannot be ignored. In the Philippines, particularly, females did not get the same educational opportunities as men. The oldest university, UST, did not admit women for collegiate courses until 1924, when its pharmacy program was first opened to females (although a school of midwifery granted certificates beginning 1879). The UP and UST medical schools did not admit women until the 1930s. Thus, the first Pinay doctors, Acosta-Sison and Olivia Salamanca, had to go to the women’s medical college in Pennsylvania to get their degrees. The headstart for men spanned centuries.

This of course was the result of a male-dominated political system that deprived women of suffrage until 1937. Women were thus at the sidelines, or even absent, in the crafting of state policy. In other words, men decided over women’s destinies. This historical handicap accorded to women lends validity to the feminist critique.

What is problematic is the radical feminism preoccupied with pitting the sexes against each other, and whose solution ironically is for women to suppress their femininity to be on equal footing with men. Women are thus discouraged from being dependent on men, from marrying men, from giving birth and being mothers to children of men. To succeed in the world of men, women must become like men. This kind of feminism also looks at abortion as the ultimate expression of women's control over their bodies, probably without considering that it may harm women in surgery. It kills female offspring.

Perhaps feminism could progress in a way that female-male relations are not analyzed on the basis of power, but on the basis of complementarity. Women and men, while inherently different, are equals and are natural partners, and could build on each other’s strengths. Using this framework of complementarity, women and men could work together to correct historical imbalances and go on performing and sharing their societal roles without so much guilt.