Feminist Resources for Biomedical Research: Lessons from the HPV Vaccines

Hypatia ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 79-101 ◽  
Author(s):  
Inmaculada De Melo-Martín ◽  
Kristen Intemann
Keyword(s):  
Biomedical Research ◽  
Equal Opportunity ◽  
Geographical Location ◽  
Social Benefits ◽  
Hpv Vaccines ◽  
Values In Science ◽  
Socially Responsible ◽  
Scientific Communities ◽  
Political Values ◽  
Scientific Phenomena

Several feminist philosophers of science have argued that social and political values are compatible with, and may even enhance, scientific objectivity. A variety of normative recommendations have emerged regarding how to identify, manage, and critically evaluate social values in science. In particular, several feminist theorists have argued that scientific communities ought to: 1) include researchers with diverse experiences, interests, and values, with equal opportunity and authority to scrutinize research; 2) investigate or “study up” scientific phenomena from the perspectives, interests, and conditions of marginalized stakeholders potentially affected by the research; and 3) make gender, ethnicity, class, and geographical location “visible,” or use them as categories of analysis when appropriate. Yet, more work is needed to determine what exactly these recommendations would require, and the benefits they would yield, in specific research contexts.Using the recent development of the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccines, we examine how these three feminist recommendations would have applied. We argue that these principles would have yielded several epistemic and social benefits in the HPV case, as well as in biomedical research more generally. That is, biomedical research guided by these principles would not only be epistemically superior, but also more socially responsible.

Values in Science and the Erosion of Trust

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Inmaculada de Melo-Martín ◽  
Kristen Intemann
Keyword(s):  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Social Values ◽  
Stakeholder Involvement ◽  
Negative Influence ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
Values In Science ◽  
Scientific Communities ◽  
Alternative Strategies ◽  
Political Values ◽  
The Public

This chapter considers another factor that plays a role in eroding the public’s trust in science: concerns about the negative influence of nonepistemic values in science, particularly in controversial areas of inquiry with important effects on public policy. It shows that the credibility of scientists can be undermined when the public perceives that scientists have a political agenda or will be biased by their own personal or political values. However, to assume that the best way to address this problem is try to eliminate such values from science altogether would be a mistake. Ethical and social values are necessary and important to knowledge production. Consequently, the chapter explores alternative strategies to increase transparency and stakeholder involvement so as to address legitimate concerns about bias and sustain warranted trust in scientific communities.

scholarly journals O FETICHE DA MERCADORIA-CIÊNCIA, O CIENTISTA COMO MERCADORIA E A DOMINAÇÃO TECNOLÓGICA

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 379
Author(s):  
Valdemir Pereira de Queiroz Neto ◽  
Maria de Fátima Vieira Severiano
Keyword(s):  
Social Inequality ◽  
Frankfurt School ◽  
Theoretical Discussion ◽  
Values In Science ◽  
Political Values ◽  
Human Needs ◽  
Technological Rationality ◽  
Educational Formation

This article has the objective of promoting reflections on the Technological Rationality and its implications to the production of science and the educational formation of scientists. With support on the theoretical reference of the Frankfurt School and other thinkers of the issue of technique and science, a critic is addressed to the existing disequilibrium between technical and humanitarian progress, denouncing the need of a redirection of scientific propositions to human needs and to the combat of the ever-increasing social inequality. Methodologically, this article is constituted of a theoretical discussion about the matter of the use of science as an instrument capable of enhancing the dominations directed to individuals, both scientists and consumers of science products. The findings reinforce the importance of the recovery of social and political values in science to the construction of a fairer and more balanced society.

Science

2020 ◽  
pp. 112-123
Author(s):  
Subrena E. Smith
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Philosophy Of Science ◽  
Social Values ◽  
Scientific Research ◽  
Values In Science ◽  
Scientific Communities ◽  
Scientific Objectivity ◽  
Helen Longino

Anna Morandi was the foremost anatomist in eighteenth-century Bologna. Although her work was widely recognized as exceptional by the scientists of her day, she was not granted the standing of a scientist. In this chapter, the author uses Morandi as a case study to illuminate aspects of the philosophy of science. In particular, the chapter addresses conceptions of scientific objectivity and the role of social values in science, drawing on the work of Helen Longino. In addition to the phenomena described by Longino, the author argues that social values enter into science and impact scientific research by determining how individuals are positioned in scientific communities, or excluded from them.

Using Values as Evidence When There’s Evidence for Your Values

2020 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-37
Author(s):  
Sharyn Clough ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Evidence Based ◽  
Values In Science ◽  
Political Values ◽  
Normative Force ◽  
Evaluative Beliefs

I have argued that political values are beliefs informed, more or less well, by the evidence of experience and that, where relevant and well-supported by evidence, the inclusion of political values in scientific theorizing can increase the objectivity of research (e.g., Clough 2003, 2004, 2011). The position I endorse has been called the “values-as-evidence” approach (Goldenberg 2013). In this essay I respond to three kinds of resistance to this approach, using examples of feminist political values. Solomon (2012) questions whether values are beliefs that can be tested, Alcoff (2006) argues that even if our values are beliefs that can be tested, testing them might not be desirable because doing so assigns these important values a contingency that weakens their normative force, and Yap (2016) argues that the approach is too idealistic in its articulation of the role of evidence in our political deliberations. In response, I discuss the ways that values can be tested, I analyze the evidential strength of feminist values in science, and I argue that the evidence-based nature of these values is neither a weakness nor an idealization. Problems with political values affecting science properly concern the dogmatic ways that evaluative beliefs are sometimes held—a problem that arises with dogmatism toward descriptive beliefs as well. I conclude that scientists, as with the rest of us, ought to adopt a pragmatically-inclined appreciation of the fallible, inductive process by which we gather evidence in support of any of our beliefs, whether they are described as evaluative or descriptive.

Real People (Natural Differences and the Scope of Justice)

1987 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 377-393 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan H. Goldman
Keyword(s):  
Public Education ◽  
Political System ◽  
Equal Opportunity ◽  
Negative Answer ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Liberal Theory ◽  
Social Benefits ◽  
Theory Of Justice ◽  
Real People ◽  
Moral Point

The idea that a just political system must ignore or nullify socially caused initial advantages in competing for positions and other social benefits is as old as political philosophy itself. Plato called for social mobility among his classes so that all could gravitate toward the classes for which their temperaments naturally suited them. The idea that the system must take positive steps to correct for these differences among individuals is likewise as old as the concept of public education, the supposed great equalizer. But the claim that society must correct also for natural differences among individuals – differences in intelligence, talents, beauty, and physical prowess – is far more recent, having been articulated most forcefully by Rawls. The reasoning underlying this further step toward a more radical notion of equal opportunity appeals to the fact that natural differences are equally arbitrary from a moral point of view as a basis for differential rewards as are socially caused differences. A person no more deserves to be born smart than rich. Why then should the former but not the latter be allowed to influence future benefits and rewards? A negative answer, however, creates a tension within a liberal theory of justice between the demand to nullify natural differences, or to use them to the benefit of those least well endowed, and the demand to respect distinct individuals that supposedly grounds such a theory.

scholarly journals Run the Experiment, Publish the Study, Close the Sale: Business, Values, Science and Biomedical Research – A Thematic Introduction

2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 5-21
Author(s):  
Aleta Quinn
Keyword(s):  
Biomedical Research ◽  
Business Models ◽  
Business Strategies ◽  
Biomedical Science ◽  
Attribution Of Responsibility ◽  
Values In Science ◽  
Epistemic Values ◽  
Publication Planning ◽  
Methodological Choices

Business models for biomedical research prescribe decentralization due to market selection pressures. I argue that decentralized biomedical research does not match four normative philosophical models of the role of values in science. Non-epistemic values affect the internal stages of for-profit biomedical science. Publication planning, effected by Contract Research Organizations, inhibits mechanisms for transformative criticism. The structure of contracted research precludes attribution of responsibility for foreseeable harm resulting from methodological choices. The effectiveness of business strategies leads to over-representation of profit values versus the values of the general public. These disconnects in respect to the proper role of values in science results from structural issues ultimately linked to the distinct goals of business versus applied science, and so it seems likely that disconnects will also be found in other dimensions of attempts to combine business and science. The volume and integration in the publishing community of decentralized biomedical research imply that the entire community of biomedical research science cannot match the normative criteria of community-focused models of values in science. Several proposals for changing research funding structure might successfully relieve market pressures that drive decentralization.

scholarly journals Economic and social benefits of socially responsible actions towards employees in agribusiness enterprises

Management ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 49-63
Author(s):  
Marek Matejun ◽  
Marcin Ratajczak
Keyword(s):  
Survey Research ◽  
Data Protection ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Employee Satisfaction ◽  
Economic Benefits ◽  
Business Practice ◽  
Social Benefits ◽  
Strong Impact ◽  
Socially Responsible ◽  
Employee Privacy

Summary The aim of the paper is to identify the scope of socially responsible actions towards employees in agribusiness enterprises and to assess their impact on the level of economic and social benefits resulting from the use of the CSR concept in business practice. The survey research carried out on a sample of 325 companies from the SME sector conducting business in rural areas of the Mazowieckie Voivodeship served to meet the objective of the paper. The results indicate a positive, strong impact of involvement in the CSR activities on the obtained effects, which is more pronounced in the case of economic benefits than social benefits, and can be observed more clearly in smaller companies. Key socially responsible actions towards employees include employee satisfaction surveys as well as data protection and protection of employee privacy. Activity in the analyzed CSR area mainly translates into financial performance and building a positive image of enterprises in their environment

Socially Responsible HRM Reporting in Russia: A Modern Practice Embedded in the Past?

2020 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 648-670
Author(s):  
Ihar Sahakiants ◽  
Marion Festing
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Historical Development ◽  
Path Dependence ◽  
Social Benefits ◽  
Socially Responsible ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Sustainability Reports ◽  
Path Dependent ◽  
Industrialised Countries

Based on an analysis of CSR/sustainability reports published by Russian companies, we analyse the determinants of socially responsible human resource management (SRHRM) disclosure in Russia. By considering the historical development and contextual specifics of the country, we concentrate on the path dependence perspective. The results of our study not only confirm the expected relationship between the reported founding history before the fall of the Soviet Union and the disclosure of information about social benefits provided to employees, but also deliver evidence that company size is a relevant predictor of SRHRM reporting in Russia. Thus, this study confirms both the path-dependent nature of organisational practices in this country, as disclosed in company reports, and the importance of factors in line with those identified in developed industrialised countries.

Equal Opportunity in Biomedical Research

Science ◽  
1974 ◽  
Vol 184 (4135) ◽  
pp. 413-414
Author(s):  
J. N. Fain ◽  
R. H. Pointer
Keyword(s):  
Biomedical Research ◽  
Equal Opportunity

scholarly journals Centralized scientific communities are less likely to generate replicable results

eLife ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Valentin Danchev ◽  
Andrey Rzhetsky ◽  
James A Evans
Keyword(s):  
Confidence Interval ◽  
High Throughput ◽  
Biomedical Research ◽  
Gene Interaction ◽  
Research Articles ◽  
Comparative Toxicogenomics Database ◽  
Scientific Communities ◽  
Large Sample ◽  
Experimental Findings ◽  
High Throughput Experiments

Concerns have been expressed about the robustness of experimental findings in several areas of science, but these matters have not been evaluated at scale. Here we identify a large sample of published drug-gene interaction claims curated in the Comparative Toxicogenomics Database (for example, benzo(a)pyrene decreases expression of SLC22A3) and evaluate these claims by connecting them with high-throughput experiments from the LINCS L1000 program. Our sample included 60,159 supporting findings and 4253 opposing findings about 51,292 drug-gene interaction claims in 3363 scientific articles. We show that claims reported in a single paper replicate 19.0% (95% confidence interval [CI], 16.9–21.2%) more frequently than expected, while claims reported in multiple papers replicate 45.5% (95% CI, 21.8–74.2%) more frequently than expected. We also analyze the subsample of interactions with two or more published findings (2493 claims; 6272 supporting findings; 339 opposing findings; 1282 research articles), and show that centralized scientific communities, which use similar methods and involve shared authors who contribute to many articles, propagate less replicable claims than decentralized communities, which use more diverse methods and contain more independent teams. Our findings suggest how policies that foster decentralized collaboration will increase the robustness of scientific findings in biomedical research.

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