What’s natural about natural childbirth?

Jender at Feminist Philosophers has a recent post about natural childbirth. She writes that the literature supporting natural childbirth is too often misleading.

Telling women that if they shop around hard enough for the right midwife, and work hard enough on their relaxation techniques and positions they’ll have a great uncomplicated time is SERIOUS misinformation.

She raises an issue similar to my post earlier this week, where I argued that a general preference for ‘natural’ ecosystems over ‘improved’ or ‘disturbed’ landscapes can be justified empirically but not with metaphysics.

‘Natural’ childbirth can mean many things to different people, from vaginal birth, to a birth without pain medications, to a birth that minimizes interventions, to a home or unassisted birth. Sometimes--perhaps too often, as Jender notes--there is a belief that if labor and birth are allowed to progress in their own time and their own way, then the labor will be less painful and delivery will be uncomplicated. And then, when the labor and delivery are slow or complications do develop, a mother whose goal is natural childbirth could feel disappointed, cheated, or even ashamed, as though she was unable to achieve what “should” be a natural biological function.

But this view entails attaching a prescriptive metaphysics to the concept of ‘natural.’ It is analogous to saying that wilderness should be valued more highly than agricultural fields because wilderness is ‘natural.’ But I like to eat bread and grapes and artichokes! Still, without buying into a flat-rate preference for natural landscapes over cultivated ones, I think we can still justify on empirical grounds why we should look to what is natural to identify the conditions in which humans and other creatures flourish.

Likewise, empirical evidence and some well-accepted criteria for healthful outcomes are what is needed to support natural childbirth and, most importantly, to support educating expectant mothers about the physiological process of birth. A good education would include what sort of pain can be expected and the average duration of active labor (which, for first-time mothers, is 20 hours, more than many practitioners allow before augmenting with pitocin).

When C-section rates rise, so do mortality rates for mothers. Mothers who have had C-sections are more likely to have additional complications, take longer to recover (on average, of course), and are less likely to breastfeed. In addition, they are more likely to have complications with subsequent pregnancies. Other interventions, such as pitocin induction, epidural pain-relief, and electronic fetal monitoring are implicated in poorer outcomes insofar as they contribute to the likelihood of unplanned caesarean birth.

The evidence supports taking steps that are likely to give women more control over birth, more autonomy during labor, and more choice than is usual in US maternity wards. But intending a natural childbirth is certainly no guarantee that labor will progress according to a plan! It would be heartless to deny the necessity and high value of medical interventions when needed, not just for emergencies like placental abruption, but also for pain relief when unexpected pain is harming a mother’s ability to give birth.

Rixa has written recently on what should be done about rising caesaraean rates. She quotes Michael Odent:

The primary objective should not be to reduce the rates of caesareans: it would be dangerous, if not preceded by a first step. This first step should be an attempt to promote a better understanding of birth physiology and particularly a better understanding of the basic needs of women in labour.

Scruffy Philosophers, with and without neckties

In Philosopher’s Carnival #55, Thom Brooks links to Crooked Timber’s post about the relative scruffiness of philosophers, particularly analytic philosophers.

I just completed an unscientific poll of the folks hanging out near my office, and all agree that, yes, a good number of analytic philosophers are scruffy. And most of the remaining are dapper or natty. (Maybe sartorial language is different in the UK, but here in the States, we pretty much only speak of guys as being "scruffy.")

The few who are neither scruffy nor donning neckties—are the women.

Yes, there are actually some women who are analytic philosophers! You’d think that our scruffy colleagues had not yet noticed. We’re the neat and tidy ones wearing skirts and two shiny earrings—because studies of student evaluations show that students respect us less if we don’t.

It's nice that the guys can joke about their scruffy image, but as long as we're still get tenured at lower rates --grasping at straws--we publish and try to dress well, too, just in case it helps.

A preference for what is natural

So often in what I read and in conversations with students about environmental problems, there is an implicit assumption that what is “natural” is better than whatever has been “disturbed” or “improved” by humans.

Most of the time, I feel that my task is to demand that the speaker think more critically about
1. why we should prefer a natural to an unnatural state since, for example, a world without smallpox seems to be a better world overall;
and
2. whether we can really ever identify a “natural” state, after millennia of human disturbance in most tropical and temperate regions and with the propagated effects of climate change, pollution, and transported species reaching even into apparent wilderness regions.

But to be fair, the shorthand of preferring natural conditions to unnatural ones is very often legitimate. Whether our concern is for human well-being or stability in ecosystems, the natural state is one that has been tested and proved, and the unnatural one has not. The proper justification, then, for this preference for what is natural is empirical evidence, not metaphysics.

Critics of the popular desire for political action on global warming like to point out that there are plenty of people who stand to be better off should their climate grow a little warmer. It will be possible to grow more wheat in Canada, for instance, and the Northwest Passage will become a viable alternative to shipping goods overland or through the Panama Canal. While it’s true that human changes may improve the world for some human goals, the fear is that they will disturb delicate systems with uncertain, and probably unwelcome, results.

A recent report in Science (Araki, Cooper, and Blouin, “Genetic Effects of Captive Breeding Cause a Rapid, Cumulative Fitness Decline in the Wild”, Science 318: 100-103) adds another case to the roster of well-intended interventions with negative long-term implications. It seems that captive breeding and wild release of fish stock may lead to lower reproductive fitness in only a few generations.

The report concludes

The evolutionary mechanism causing the fitness decline remains unknown. We suspect that unintentional domestication selection and relaxation of natural selection, due to artificially modified and well-protected rearing environments for hatchery fish, are probably occurring…To supplement declining wild populations, therefore, repeat use of captive-reared organisms for reproduction of captive-reared progenies should be carefully reconsidered.

This indicates that the study species--steelhead trout--are being domesticated. The alternative to stocking wild populations is to do more (much more) to prevent decline in the first place. This means reducing how many are taken and/or preventing habitat destruction. Neither is easy or popular.

CFP: Feminist Metaphysics Volume

Call for Abstracts/Papers

Feminist Metaphysics

This volume is to be published by Springer Publishing as part of a series on Feminist Philosophy. The series will include five volumes on: Feminism and Aesthetics; Feminist Philosophy of Religion; Feminist Epistemology and Philosophy of Science; Feminist History of Philosophy; and Feminist Ethics and Social and Political Philosophy.

Series Editor: Elizabeth Potter
Volume Editor: Charlotte Witt

As the first collection of papers devoted to the topic of feminist metaphysics, this volume is a landmark in the development of feminist philosophy. Although feminist metaphysics remains a contested field within feminist philosophy, its history stretches back at least to Beauvoir’s The Second Sex. Feminist interest in metaphysics includes broad questions concerning the ways in which ontologies and metaphysical frameworks are implicated in the oppression of women or their exclusion from intellectual history, and specific questions concerning the adequacy of theories of personal identity, of the self, and of the body. Most of the papers in the volume will be previously unpublished, original work approximately 8500 words in length.

Possible topics include (but are not limited to!): the relationship between metaphysics and feminist theory; essentialism and anti-essentialism about sex and gender; theories of the body and embodiment; theories of subjectivity, agency, personal identity and the self. I welcome contributions from diverse feminist perspectives including those of analytic and continental feminists, feminists of color, and feminists from diverse cultural and national origins. The choice of papers to include will reflect the editor’s desire to include a range of topics and perspectives in this landmark collection.

Those interested in submitting an essay for this volume should send a 200 word abstract by January 15, 2008. Acceptance decisions will be based on the preliminary draft of your essay, which will be due by May 15, 2008. Authors whose submissions are accepted on the basis of the preliminary draft will have until October 2008 to complete their essays (8500 words). Inquiries, abstracts and submissions should be sent electronically to Charlotte Witt (Charlotte.Witt@unh.edu)

Fixing Environmental Problems with Spirit

I’ve been reading an article in Harper’s, reprinted from Orion, by Curtis White. It's titled “The Idols of Environmentalism.”

The title resonates with two cultural warnings against idols. First, there is the Biblical command against worshiping false idols. White calls for a “return” to a relationship with nature that is spiritual rather the scientific.

In accepting science as our primary weapon against environmental destruction, we have also had to accept science’s contempt for religion and the spiritual…Environmentalism should stop depending on its alliance with science for its sense of itself. It should look to create a common language of care.

The title is also an intentional reference to Francis Bacon, who wrote in the 1600’s in support of organizing modern science to improve human life. Bacon was concerned to recognize that some kinds of bias would systematically undermine or twist inquiry, and one of these biases was the “idol of the tribe.” These are beliefs that are shared and taken for granted, such that evidence which contradicts them is ignored or explained away.

White believes that the current “idols of the tribe” that mislead environmentalists are the belief that our environmental problems are uniquely caused by outsized corporate power and the belief that science will be what solves them. These two false beliefs, he argues, support each other.

Our dependence on the scientific language of ‘environment,’ ‘ecology,’ ‘diversity,’ ‘habitat,’ and ‘ecosystem’ is a way of acknowledging the superiority of the kind of rationality that serves corporate capitalism.

White is here rejecting two principles of mainstream environmentalism:
1. That science, even “value-free science,” is a force (and one of the strongest forces) for protecting and improving the environment;
2. That even if corporate greed is a cause of environmental problems, capitalism and the current economic system can be used to slow and even reverse environmental damage through trade agreements, green products, LEED certification, conservation easements, etc.

It would be natural to ask White what he thinks we should do, if we are to give up scientific and economic tools for environmental reform. What is left?

He eloquently counters this move,

I am tempted to quote Voltaire’s response to the complaint that he had nothing to put in the place of the Christianity he criticized. “What!” he said. “A ferocious beast has sucked the blood of my family; I tell you to get rid of that beast, and you ask me, what shall we put in its place!”

White nonetheless does suggest something to take the place of science and capitalism, and that is “spirit.” I can only think that he is suggesting that we (all of us) abandon our jobs, our homes in the city, our social networks, and move to a place where we can be reverent of nature. But where would that be? And given the size of the population, what should we do with all the others, those who would not be able to survive without the efficiencies of urban environments?

Lurking behind the recommendation that we abandon our modern society in toto is a disrespect for the value of humanity, for the value of individual human lives. This is not a different way of being an environmentalist, it is a way of giving up doing or being anything. It is an open invitation to relativism—White recedes into a corner with his Spirit while everyone else holds on to their own gods and idols.

White is also sorely out of touch with who scientists are—with who they are as people. He contrasts science (the “rational”) with “care.” But I know of no one who is more caring of living things than the scientists who study them, even including the pill bugs! Who inspires more care of nature, churches or science? The answer is not obviously with the churches.

One of the “good children of the Enlightenment” and not easily disillusioned, I still look first to ignorance (and second to greed) to explain our shortcomings.

What's popular in philosophy?

The campus bookstore at my university has invited the philosophy department to assemble a shelf of book recommendations. Presumably these should be books that might actually sell, and not, for example, Quine’s Word and Object or Carnap’s Aufbau, no matter how influential they might have been.

This has prompted me to consult Amazon for popular titles in “Philosophy.”

What counts as “philosophy,” or as “metaphysics” for that matter, depends on who you ask.

The Amazon listing of bestselling philosophy books includes titles such as “The 48 Laws of Power” (#231) and “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens” (#26,114).

One wonders about the prevalence of numbers in the titles of popular books--perhaps Wittgenstein could be a popular author if instead of the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus it were titled “7 Propositions on Language and Reality.” Especially since language seems to be a hot popular philosophy topic, with Steven Pinker showing up in every list.

So, if we confine our picks to Philosophy that Philosophers Would Recognize, the bestselling list looks something like this:
Steven Pinker, The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature (#70)
Charles Taylor, A Secular Age (#303)
Thomas Cathcart and David Klein, Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar: Understanding Philosophy through Jokes (a humorous but respectable survey of philosophy assembled by non-philosophers) (#384)

After that, the next most popular titles are clearly bought as college course texts:
Anthony Weston, A Rulebook for Arguments
Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
Plato, The Republic
Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish
(that last one is a surprise, eh?)

One of the most popular collections of current philosophical research articles is
The Daily Show and Philosophy (#2976), which probably explains why my students write essays about that utilitarian, Jon Stewart Mills.

In philosophy of science, the most popular books are
Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion (#103) and
Daniel Dennett, Breaking the Spell (#3539)
which makes me wonder when it was that philosophy of science became engulfed by questions about religion.

Meanwhile, some of the books that I had hoped to pick for the bookstore shelf like Philip Kitcher, Science, Truth, and Democracy are ranked lower (higher?) than 200,000.

More on supporting breastfeeding

More than just about anything else, feminism supports increasing the choices that are available to women (just as other liberatory movements increase freedoms and the availability of choice).

I would not, therefore, advocate exclusive breastfeeding as always the best choice for every mother and infant. But in today's context, breastfeeding is not always available as a choice for mothers, often because they must work and their employers do not provide them with time and private space to express milk.

Mothers are also denied information about the health benefits of breastfeeding and advice on how to succeed in getting started.

A Mothering article cites health benefits to infants that include lowering the risk of respiratory tract infections by 72% and lowering the risk of ear infections by 50%.
Breastfeeding reduces a mother's risk of ovarian cancer by 21% and breast cancer by 28%.
In spite of this, only 16% of American mothers breastfeed exclusively for 6 months, which is the current pediatric recommendation.

Cesarean sections make breastfeeding harder on mothers, and the rate of C-sections has climbed from 5% in 1970 to about 30% today.

Finally, selling formula is big business, both in the U.S. and abroad. Peggy O'Mara reports that political coercion and false advertising is used to discourage mothers from breastfeeding.

CFP: 2nd Conference Society for Analytical Feminism

EXTENSION OF THE DEADLINE TO NOVEMBER 1

Call for Papers
2nd Conference
Society for Analytical Feminism
April 4-6, 2008
University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY
Sponsored by
the University of Kentucky, Office of the Dean, College of Arts and Sciences
and the Vice President for Research

The Society of Analytical Feminism is sponsoring a conference in Lexington, KY, April 4-6, 2008. The Society invites the submission of papers that address feminist issues in any area of philosophy, including philosophy of language, philosophy of science, metaphysics, race theory, normative ethics, metaethics, Kantian ethics, social and political philosophy, philosophy of law, Ancient philosophy, rational choice theory, and epistemology. The general theme of the conference is an examination of the relationship between analytical feminism and these areas of philosophy, including contributions that analytic feminist philosophy has made to these areas and ways in which it may have changed approaches to problems in these areas.

Invited speakers are:

Louise Antony (U. Mass, Amherst)
Ann Cudd (U. Kansas)
Robin Dillon (Lehigh U.)
Julia Driver (Dartmouth College)
Ann Garry (Cal State, L.A.)
Sally Haslanger (MIT)
Miriam Solomon (Temple U.)
Mariam Thalos (U. Utah)
Charlotte Witt (U. New Hampshire)
Alison Wylie (U. Washington)

Papers should be about 20 minutes reading time (about 10-12 pages), prepared for blind review, and submitted by email to the conference organizers Anita Superson (superson@uky.edu)or Sharon Crasnow (sharon.crasnow@rcc.edu) by NOVEMBER 1, 2007. For further information, please contact Anita or Sharon.

PSA CFP and PSA Women's Caucus

The Philosophy of Science Association meets every two years and is next meeting in Pittsburgh, November 6 - 9 2008. The CFP for contributed papers is below, and the deadline is February 1, 2008.

PSA has long been a highly respected philosophical organization. Philosophy of science has a larger number of practitioners than, say, philosophy of art or philosophy of technology. And in some circles it is considered more prestigious (some might say elitist) than research areas such as practical ethics or pragmatism.

Philosophy of science (the subject area) and PSA (the organization) have also, in recent years, been criticized as not being sufficiently progressive, practical, inclusive, or original. Several recent books have contributed to this perception: John McCumber's Time in the Ditch, George Reisch's How the Cold War Transformed Philosophy of Science: To the Icy Slopes of Logic, and Nicholas Maxwell's several books.

PSA meetings remain essential for young philosophers of science, and the programs are stimulating. But the 2006 meeting rejected more submitted papers than it accepted, which created some resentment among members. That conference program featured female-authored papers as a lower percentage of the total than the background rate of women in philosophy (which is about 20%, although women's PSA membership may actually be lower than 20%). Authors of journal articles in Philosophy of Science, too, are less than 20% female.

In response to what has been perceived as a climate for women that is, if not actually chilly, then somewhat cool, a Women's Caucus was formed in 2006. Their goal is to foster mentoring for young women philosophers of science and also to influence the organization to broaden the scope of the discipline to welcome feminist and other new approaches. Check out the extensive website which includes fun pictures and helpful links!

Here's the CFP for PSA 2008:

Call for Papers: Philosophy of Science Association

Twenty-First Biennial Meeting: November 6-9, 2008
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Members of the Philosophy of Science Association (PSA) are invited to submit papers to be presented at the PSA 2008 meeting in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on November 6-9. Contributed papers may be on any topic in the philosophy of science. The PSA 2008 Program Committee will strive for quality, variety, innovation, and diversity on the program. We encourage papers in both traditional and novel areas of philosophy of science.

The deadline for paper submissions is February 1, 2008. Some papers will be accepted for both presentation at the PSA 2008 meeting and publication in a supplementary issue of Philosophy of Science; other papers will be accepted just for presentation. Both types of accepted paper will be electronically published prior to the meeting. In each case, the Program Committee expects to make its decision by May, 2008. Final versions of all papers accepted for publication must be submitted by January 15, 2009.

The maximum manuscript length is 5,000 words, including footnotes and references. If the text includes tables or figures, an appropriate number of words should be subtracted from the limit. Submissions must include a 100-word abstract and a word count. Format and citation style should match those of the journal Philosophy of Science (see http://journal.philsci.org/Guidelines/ for details). Submissions should be prepared for blind review, with no identifying information in the body of the paper or abstract. (See http://philsci.org/conferences/psa2008/blinding.html for guidelines about blinding papers.)

Authors of accepted papers are expected to present abbreviated versions of their papers, with a time limit of twenty minutes.

Papers must be electronically submitted at http://philsci.org/conferences/psa2008/submit/

Breastfeeding rights update

In an appeal, Sophie Currier has won an accommodation of extra time for expressing breast milk during her Medical Board exam.

The appellate judge wrote that under the previous ruling, she would have to

use her break time to incompletely express breast milk and ignore her bodily functions, or abdicate her decision to express breast milk, resulting in significant pain.

He also wrote that ignoring her status as a lactating mother placed her at a "significant disadvantage in comparison to her peers."

The decision goes beyond the immediate context to publicize the medical and social imperative to support breastfeeding and to support women who choose to both be mothers and work outside the home.

Further thoughts are in this earlier post.

CFP: "Recoupling Genre and Gender"

A CFP for a special issue of the journal Angelaki is below.

The theme raises questions that include whether and how philosophy (or certain areas or styles in philosophy) are masculine, and if so, whether it is their masculine qualities that contribute to those areas of inquiry being pursued by more males than females.

For example, Jender has noted that software which presumes to guess an author's gender generally pegs analytic philosophy as male, no matter the actual gender of the author. The style expectations in analytic philosophy mimic typical male speech/writing patterns.

This raises some of the same issues as the silly literature on whether boys are naturally good at math, or whether the fact that they receive more instruction and more instructor attention has something to do with it. We analytic philosophers apparently learn which writing style is appropriate. Are women in general taught that a particular writing style is the one with which they are expected to express themselves?

Here's the cfp:

Recoupling Genre and ‘Gender’

Edited by Moira Gatens

Theme Issue for Angelaki: journal of theoretical humanities

Proposed publication date: December 2008

Questions about genre always raise questions of tradition, authority and exclusion. What justifies the judgement that one text is ‘philosophical’, another ‘literary’, and yet another ‘historical’? And
how might these broad ‘genre’ distinctions play out in the realm of gender? Is literary production ‘feminised’ in relation to a ‘masculinised’ philosophy? And what can be said about the gendering of
genres within disciplines?

For example:

· Writing the history of ‘Great Men’ and ‘Great Events’ is the preserve of men whereas social histories, that require an ‘eye for detail’ and the ‘everyday’, are suited to the special talents of women.
· Metaphysics and Epistemology are at the ‘science’ end of philosophy, whereas moral and social philosophy is at the ‘humanities’ end and so more suited to women.
· Epic poetry, high tragedy, and wide-ranging, ‘big picture’, creations are the literary preserve of men; women’s genre is the novel and the short story, both of which suit women’s talents in representing the
everyday and domesticity.

Perhaps these platitudes do little more than rearticulate the claim that Man is able to grasp the 'universal' whereas woman’s preserve is the ‘particular’? Recent scholarship, across the disciplines, has questioned both how these disciplines (history, philosophy, and literature) relate to each other and the way in which ‘gender’ has been coupled with particular genres of writing.

This special issue of Angelaki aims to bring together an interdisciplinary group of scholars in order to reconsider ways in which the genre and gender question has been configured in recent theory. It seeks innovative reformulations of the genre-gender relation that emphasise the ways in which this relation is intimately tied to specific social norms and particular institutions in a variety of cultural, historical and political contexts. To this end, the papers will explore the specificity of the discursive relationship between various ‘coupled’ authors as well as the way in which the reception of their writings may have changed over time. (The ‘coupled’ authors might include: Wollstonecraft and Godwin, George Eliot and G.H. Lewes, Virgina Woolf and Vita Sackville West, Mary Shelley and P.B. Shelley, Heidegger and Arendt, Delueze and Guattari). The overriding aim is to move towards a 'recoupling' of genre and gender that acknowledges the full force of the range of institutions and social and historical conventions at work in genre allocation.

The upper limit for submissions is 10,000 words but shorter pieces are welcome. Please follow MLA style and submit papers electronically (in Word format) to Moira.Gatens@arts.usyd.edu.au

Deadline for submission: 15 April 2008.

Carnival of Feminists #45

Thanks to Jender and the Feminist Philosophers for sponsoring Carnival of Feminists no. 45!

And also, for posting an update on the breastfeeding rights case.

Sophie Currier has had her day in court, and she lost. Boston Globe article here, and Sophie Currier's "Accomodate Nursing" blog is here.

As Jender notes, the comments on the case all around are mixed and sometimes dismaying, including those at the MomsRising site I've linked to.
What are the issues raised?

1. Ignorance.
How many people know what pumping milk is like except by having pumped? For one thing, there is a lot of variability in how long it takes mothers to set up the pump, relax enough to have the milk flow, pump the milk, restore one's dress and composure, store the milk, and clean the apparatus. Twenty to thirty minutes is not unrealistic. How often also depends on the mother and on the age of the baby, but once every three to four hours is about right.

2. Fairness.
Is it fair that one test-taker should receive more breaks or a longer time to take the test than another? First, I do not see why it is relevant that Dr. Currier has an accomodation for another reason that is unrelated to this reason.
Second, if the test is set up so that a score below a certain level is failing while a higher score passes, then she is competing against the test, not against other test-takers. The question is whether she is competent to practice medicine, not whether she is more or less competent than the person sitting to her right.

3. Privacy
One proposal was that she be allowed to pump but not in private. That is ridiculous. At the same time that breastfeeding privacy was being questioned in this case, there have been several recent cases in which a mother was thrown off of a plane (Delta Airlines) for breastfeeding and a mother was asked to cover up at Appleby's. It now sounds as though Dr. Currier will be offered a private room.

4. Mothers and work
A frequent comment is that mothers should not expect that they can both breastfeed a child and be employed outside the home. To Dr. Currier, the courts have essentially sent this message, saying that she should plan to take the test when she's done breastfeeding. What can I say to this? Where can I even start?
But the reality of course is that some jobs are not easily compatible with breastfeeding or mothering. Dr. Currier says she did try to take this into account. It is the reason she had children while in medical school rather than wait until her residency.
So what this court decision comes down to is that it pressures women with young children to stay home with them.

5. Support breastfeeding
Since foregoing employment is simply not an option for many women, either because they need earnings to support their family or because they are heavily invested in a profession (academia, medicine, law) which prevents women from taking time off, this court decision effectively discourages women from breastfeeding. The current medical recommendation is to nurse babies for a minimum of one year. WHO recommends nursing for two years. The public sphere in the US needs to catch up with these recommendations.

Doubting Research on Genes and Gender

Thanks to Khadimir for asking my thoughts on John Ioannidis' finding that a majority of scientific claims about sex-based genetic differences between men and women are poorly supported. Here's the news report in Science.

The paper, published in JAMA, reviewed published claims about the genetic basis for sex differences in ailments such as hypertension, schizophrenia and heart attacks. Ioannidis found that the claims were, for the most part, overstated or the support for them was undocumented.

The Wall Street Journal quotes Dr. Ioannidis:
"People are messing around with the data to find anything that seems significant, to show they have found something that is new and unusual."

In defense of the peer-reviewed research:
1. Sometimes it does take "messing around with data" to uncover leads for future research.
2. Sometimes the data that would support a claim is not all contained within the published report, but this doesn't mean that the claim is false.
3. The process of peer review and responding to editor's suggestions sometimes stretches claims.
4. That few of the results have been replicated is not surprising. Researchers do not get credit for replicating someone else's findings. The proof comes in using the results as the basis for more research.

What Ioannidis is right to point out:
1. The pressure to publish can lead to stretched claims even when there is no outright fraud, and it can lead to trivial results reported as though they are on a stonger footing than they actually are.
2. In medical research, perhaps replication is more important than in some other areas of science.
3. Philip Kitcher has argued that in areas of science where the results most immediately impact human well-being (such as in medicine), scientists should pay more attention to how "well-ordered" their projects are. Are they pursuing a project only for the sake of getting the next grant? Or does it contribute to what we want and need to know? I take it that part of Ioannidis' concern is that researchers comb their results to find anything that passes the test of statistical significance, regardless of whether or not it tells us something worth knowing. This, then, could explain why so few results are replicated and so few false results are retracted. In this light, what Ioannidis raises is a concern not of truth and falsity but of efficiency.

Finally, I don't think it is particularly suspicious that it is sex-linked claims that were studied--even though sex-linked claims have been the target of feminist critique, e.g. by Anne Fausto-Sterling. The same sort of dynamic is true of other genetic research (and I believe Ioannidis has done similar surveys in epidemiology). However, it is worth thinking about the amount of money that is poured into this sort of research. For some of the diseases studied, such as hypertension, we have quite a lot of understanding about treatment and prevention but still don't treat and prevent for other reasons, such as the shameful lack of access to health insurance in the U.S.

The Future of Naturalism conference

No weekend plans? It's not too late to decide to attend the conference on "The Future of Naturalism" at The Center for Inquiry in Amherst, NY tomorrow through Saturday! The conference is co-sponsored with the University at Buffalo's Philosophy Department, and it features an all-star cast of epistemologists and associated philosophers.

Some planned highlights:
Laura Purdy on naturalism, religion, and sexual ethics
Ron Giere on naturalism and secularism
Hilary Kornblith on naturalism and knowledge
Lynn Hankinson Nelson on social epistemology as naturalized epistemology
Akeel Bilgrami on naturalism and philosophy of mind
Charlene Haddock Seigfried on pragmatism and naturalism
and many more...

Were we ever postmodern?

It seems that now whenever I see references to postmodern philosophy they are in the past tense:

"The postmodernist agenda was..."
"An attraction of postmodernist philosophy was that it..."
"There is much worth retaining from postmodernism..."

Postmodernism is alive, well, and current according to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (though note that the cited texts were mostly written in the 1980s). But the present tense and the past tense are at battle on the Wikipedia sites for Postmodernism and Postmodern Philosophy. Is postmodernism alive or deceased? The copy on wiki sites is subject to change, but right now the tense confusion has produced this:

"[Davidson] argued that truth was not about getting it right...but was part of a social practice, and language was what served our purposes in a particular time."

(This use of the past tense seems to make it impossible to say anything about truth in general and to talk only about the intent of past truth-claims. But maybe, for a postmodernist, that's the point.)

When I was an undergraduate I identified with postmodernism. It was the movement of the times, so how could I not? I read Feminism/Postmodernism, edited by Linda Nicholson, and was especially motivated by her introductory essay and by Sandra Harding's article on "Feminism, Science, and the Anti-Enlightenment Critiques." I heard the feminist worry that perhaps postmodernism, by dismissing grand narratives, would also be dismissive of feminism. But I thought that sounded like a mere technical problem.

I read Foucault, and I read Nancy Fraser on Foucault. I thought postmodernism was about identifying power, calling it out, and then getting on with the business of using theory to smooth the way for progressive political change. I thought that the critical, disillusioning technique of postmodernism would be a useful one.

What I did not realize was that postmodernism's critique of reason was powerful but blunt. Its success was such that it was not able to carve away at a problem, exposing the power relations, exposing the ideologies, and revealing the questions of justice and knowledge that would yield to moral argument and empirical inquiry. It cuts and cuts and cuts until nothing is left.

The problem is that research into social relations, power dynamics, and ideological influence can never turn up negative results. If the problem with the modernism that postmodernism opposed was that history and intellectual development in the West was a monotonous story of the revealing of Reason through the ages, then the problem with postmodernism was the converse. Postmodernism is also monotone. Ideology and power relations always have an influence.

Philosophy is still working out how to distinguish the influence of reason from the influence of power, or better, how these interact. I think many areas of philosophy are at work on this. Social epistemology, feminist epistemology and philosophy of science, pragmatism, social and political theory, philosophy of technology, applied ethics.