A Response to Hubbard’s essay Science, Facts, and Feminism

A Response to Hubbard’s essay Science, Facts, and Feminism

In her essay "Science, Facts, and Feminism" Ruth Hubbard makes many claims in relating her opinions about the relationship between men and women in society as well as the role science plays in this relationship and the balance of power in the world. One of her claims states that "the pretense that science is objective, apolitical and value-neutral is profoundly political because it obscures the political role that science and technology play in underwriting the existing distribution of power in society." In essence, she is saying that it is ridiculous to claim that science is an objective look at the world around us because science is constantly affected by society and the political establishment. I agree that it is impossible to claim that science is in every way separate from politics and power because those types of people who created the political world also created the scientific world to supplement and support it. For example, the government, a political and power establishment, created the Manhattan Project and put a huge amount of funding into a scientific project that produced the atomic bomb.

Hubbard disagrees with the idea that science is immune to power and politics. To think that science is neutral one must assume that the scientist is able to remove himself from the test subject and the surroundings and simply observe without affecting the test in any way. In reality this is impossible. The scientist must design the test, perform it, and be prepared to fix it if it does not address the problem he has posed. Because human beings are imperfect, the tests are also imperfect. As a result, the conclusion the scientist reaches is no longer objective, but influenced by the type of results he is expecting.

Furthermore, to think that science is immune to the power establishment, one must assume that it is in no way affected by government or companies with money to spend. This, like the assumption that science is neutral, is also incorrect. In order for a scientist to be funded in his research, he must submit proposals to those power establishments that have money. These powerful companies and governments will only fund those projects they deem important to their interests and goals. In this way, science is extremely political in its effort to obtain money and support because it must please those power establishments who are, by nature, political.