Re: Anthropology of Science

Brian Michael Howell (bmhowell@ARTSCI.WUSTL.EDU)
Tue, 3 Oct 1995 14:45:59 -0500

On Tue, 3 Oct 1995, Jay Kotliar wrote:

> Is science an inherently a sexist institution? There are sexist scientists,
> there are sexist institutions devoted to science, but I am not as yet
> convinced that science itself as a cosmological institution is in itself
> sexist. I know it is fashionable these days in our society to discuss "male"
> and "female" patterns of thought-but I find much of this categorization is
> too simplistic, overly broad, and does not account for the wide variety of
> personalities within genders and the overlap between genders. I am getting
> irritated with gneral broadsides against science in anthropology-is
> postmodern anthropology contributing anything beyond a critique?
>
What postmodernity offers is the notion that science is not a
"cosmological category". "Science" is every bit as subject its social
context as art and religion.