women and deconstruction/construction in scien

[Patricia S. Bowne]

Sarah - it was my comment about the coincidence of 'deconstruction'
of science and women's entry into it that you were responding to,
and I did not mean it to indicate that women's entry had *caused*
the deconstruction of science!

I was merely complaining about the fact that science's prestige
had come under attack at the same time that women like myself
were more readily admitted into the field, and that we had missed
out on the change to be heroic scientists. I did not mean to
indicate that women corrupted any field they joined, or that women
were unheroic, or anything like that.

I also agree with you that scientists should always be critical. What
I'm arguing about is what we're critical in aid of. Is our goal to
get rid of hypotheses that don't appear to reflect reality, or to
get rid of hypotheses which don't fit some set of arbitrary rules?
I'm in the reality camp - not meaning that I think I've found it, or that
anyone ever will, but I believe it's out there to be found. I think 
Popper wouldn't have any trouble with that idea, from what I've read
of him - but modern feminist critics of science, like Sandra Harding,
seem to be disagreeing with it, and that's my gripe with them.

Pat Bowne