Criticizing Science

Should the critique of historical scientific racism and sexism be pursued in the midst of anti-science conspiracy theories? In this talk, taken from my recent book Criticizing Science: Stephen Jay Gould and the Struggle for American Democracy I advocate that we need to reframe our understanding of these politics away from a framework of “scientific doubt” to one of “scientific criticism.” In doing so, we will better be able to see creationist, anti-vaxx, climate change denial movements, as well as feminist and critical-race criticisms of historical scientific violence as alternative world-building projects of critique, rather than as insufficiently secular explanatory models. Once we do this, we may claim if we choose, that the leftist critique of the historical and ongoing violence of science is a vital ethical project even when the public criticism of science risks ethnonationalism and anti-science conspiracy theories.