Sex, Knowledge and Science (Adelaide Festival of Ideas)Sex, Knowledge and Science (Adelaide Festival of Ideas)
All In The Mind
Doing science has no room for gender and agendas, right? It's all about the objective pursuit of facts and truths about nature. Or is it? Acclaimed historian of science Londa Schiebinger, and top philosophers Simon Blackburn and Karen Green join Natasha Mitchell to debate the making of modern science, beards, breasts and how we came to be called mammals!
29:57•12 Sept 2009
Sex, Beards and Breasts: Who Really Shapes Scientific Truth?
Episode Overview
- Science aims at truth and objectivity, but these are goals that must be worked for, rather than simply assumed.
- Gender and culture influence which scientific questions are asked, funded and considered important.
- Key philosophers historically dismissed women as inferior reasoners, shaping who was seen as capable of producing knowledge.
- Linnaeus’s choice to label humans as "mammals" reflects 18th-century ideas about women’s roles as mothers and carers.
- Teaching explicit gender analysis can expose hidden assumptions in research and lead to more robust human knowledge.
“"It's not that science isn't true and objective. Truth and objectivity are lofty goals, but they have to be obtained. You cannot proclaim them."”
What secrets to maintaining sobriety can be uncovered from a bunch of philosophers arguing about beards, breasts and objectivity in science? This conversation from All In The Mind takes you right into a sharp, often funny debate about how knowledge gets made – and who gets to shape it. Hosted by science journalist Natasha Mitchell at the Adelaide Festival of Ideas, the panel brings together philosopher Simon Blackburn, feminist philosopher Karen Green, and historian of science Londa Schiebinger.
Together they ask whether science really sits above gender, culture and politics, or whether those "messy" factors quietly influence what counts as truth. You’ll hear Nietzsche’s line "there are not facts, there are only interpretations" used as a jumping-off point for a bigger question: is science a clear mirror of nature, or more like a lamp that throws its own light on the world?
Blackburn pushes back against the idea that everything is cultural – pointing out that gravity works the same whether you’re male, female or from another planet – while still arguing that culture shapes which questions get asked and funded. Schiebinger shares striking examples of how gendered assumptions affect research, from museum skeletons mostly labelled male to Linnaeus naming us "mammals" – the breasted ones – in a way that reinforced women’s role in the home.
Green unpacks how philosophers like Aristotle and Kant dismissed women as "defective reasoners", and how recovering forgotten women thinkers starts to shift the story of knowledge itself. If you like your science with a side of humour, history and sharp feminist argument, this conversation gives you plenty to chew on and might leave you asking: whose voices are shaping the "truths" you take for granted?
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