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Criticizing Science

Stephen Jay Gould and the Struggle for American Democracy

Myrna Perez

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How Stephen Jay Gould's career illustrates that criticizing science is important for American democracy.

The question of public trust in science feels newly urgent, but today is not the first time that opposing ends of the American political spectrum have critiqued modern science. This dynamic has historical roots in the early 1970s, when critiques of science emerged simultaneously out of Civil Rights, feminist, and decolonization movements on the left, as well as within the creationism of the Christian Right.

In Criticizing Science, Myrna Perez follows the public career of evolutionary...

How Stephen Jay Gould's career illustrates that criticizing science is important for American democracy.

The question of public trust in science feels newly urgent, but today is not the first time that opposing ends of the American political spectrum have critiqued modern science. This dynamic has historical roots in the early 1970s, when critiques of science emerged simultaneously out of Civil Rights, feminist, and decolonization movements on the left, as well as within the creationism of the Christian Right.

In Criticizing Science, Myrna Perez follows the public career of evolutionary biologist, political leftist, and anti-creationist Stephen Jay Gould during the final decades of the American twentieth century. Gould believed that denaturalizing scientific objectivity could be part of the greater work of racial and gender justice in the United States. Perez shows the promises and limitations of Gould's view—most famously expressed in his 1981 book The Mismeasure of Man—that the collective self-reflection on the history of scientific bias would lead to a better, less oppressive science. She argues that we must instead contend with the radical possibilities that are opened by working for a resolutely democratic science.

By centering Gould, Perez clarifies divides among left, liberal, and right-wing movements over evolutionary science during the rise of the Christian Right and the expansion of academic feminism. These divides continue to shape contemporary debates over climate change, vaccines, abortion policy, and the nature of gender in present-day American politics.

Reviews

Reviews

This brilliant work offers an imperative opportunity to reflect on the relationship between scientific knowledge and democratic life. Through a political history of twentieth-century evolutionary biology, Myrna Perez teaches how inextricable the history of facts is from the history of religious and political belief. Essential reading.

In this stunning history, Perez persuasively argues that we cannot understand contemporary 'culture wars' in the U.S. without a history of science. Using Stephen Jay Gould as a fulcrum, Perez weaves a fascinating tale about truth, politics, and the future of democratic science. A must-read!

In this timely, captivating, and deeply self-reflective work Perez recovers Stephen J. Gould's progressive contributions to the field of evolutionary biology, helping readers understand what the Left and the Right believes about truth, race, and gender—and why science in our current moment cannot wait for democracy. A marvelous book that will surely help us navigate the momentum of the Right, the fracturing of the Left, and our enduring skepticism of science in America.

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Release Date
Publication Date
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Preorder
Trim Size
6
x
9
Pages
264
ISBN
9781421450155
Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. Racism and the Promise of a Democratic Science
2. Sociobiology and Gender Trouble
3. Evolutionarily Engineered Sexism
4. Scientists Confront Creationism
5. The Accidental

Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. Racism and the Promise of a Democratic Science
2. Sociobiology and Gender Trouble
3. Evolutionarily Engineered Sexism
4. Scientists Confront Creationism
5. The Accidental Creationists
6. Is a Democratic Science the End of Western Secularism?
Epilogue: Why We Can't Wait for a Democratic Science
Notes
Index

Author Bio
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Myrna Perez

Myrna Perez is an associate professor of gender and American religion at Ohio University. She is the coeditor of Critical Approaches to Science and Religion and a series editor of Osiris.