The Experts below are selected from a list of 291 Experts worldwide ranked by ideXlab platform
Elise Chenier - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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disorders of desire sex and gender in modern american sexology revised and expanded form
Archives of Sexual Behavior, 2008Co-Authors: Elise ChenierAbstract:At the 2005 IASSAC conference, Irvine commented that if she were to write this book today she would approach her study of sex and gender in modern American sexology quite differently. Of course, few would write the same book twice, but Irvine was speaking directly to the shared sense of panic and despair U.S. scholars and activists expressed as they watched precious gains made in the 1970s and 1980s disappear faster than forces can be mobilized against the current assault on sexual rights and freedoms. As she remarks in the Afterword, critiques from the left were drowned out by the tidal wave of criticism from the right. Irvine’s comments were an apt reminder that whether we are constructing it, treating it, or writing about it, sex is politically charged territory where everyone has a position. Fortunately, the publisher recognizes that this volume’s sociohistorical analysis of modern American sexology is as relevant to readers today as it was when first released in 1990 (see Turner, 1992). Reissued in expanded form, the returning reader is offered additional material in the form of a short preface, Chapter 7 (which first appeared as an article in a 1993 issue of Social Text), and an Afterword that brings the book, and some of its arguments, up-to-date. Aside from minor editing for clarity, the original contents remain unchanged. Irvine’s approach refuses to assess the success—or failure—of any one technique, approach or theory. Like other historians of sexuality, she focuses on unpacking the cultural, ideological, and commercial foundations sexology rests upon. Influenced by social control and social construction theories, Irvine regards 20th century American sexologists as ‘‘agents for the medicalization of sex’’ (p. 243). A central theme that runs throughout the text is that sexology faces a double bind: on the one hand, because it relies on Scientific Rationality to stake a claim for cultural and political authority and legitimacy, sexology is doomed to fail since it refuses to engage with broader social and political theories of power and oppression. However, if it were to incorporate the critical insights of the feminist and gay activist left into their research and treatment approaches, sexology would have a tough time transforming their services and treatments into a viable product for the consumer marketplace. Social change will not occur when sex ‘‘problems’’ (many of which are constructed and defined by sexologists themselves) are treated as individual problems; neither can it be bought or sold in pharmaceutical or latex form. As she puts it, addressing social issues was ‘‘anathema to Masters, Johnson, and many other sexologists. In sex therapy, the ‘cure’ is orgasm, not social change. And this was vital, because orgasms can be marketed in a profit-making system, while social change cannot’’ (p. 149). Irvine’s broad thesis remains unchanged in the 2005 edition, except that now she regards bioscience and ‘‘Big Pharma’’ as the major challenge facing the future survival of sexology. To introduce this book to a new generation of scholars (and as a refresher for the rest of us), a brief recap is in order. Rather than focus on the ways that sexual ‘‘progressives’’ opened new discursive sites for the articulation of sexual politics outside of the moral paradigm that prevailed, section one focuses on the conservative leanings of ‘‘Scientific sexologists.’’ Irvine argues that unlike European sexologists whose professional origins were grounded in the fight for social equality and against discrimination, U.S. experts ultimately helped to create and police sociosexual boundaries by providing a pseudoScientific basis for gender and heteronormativity (p. 7). Sex researchers like Kinsey and Masters and Johnson gained a successful foothold in the culturally conservative 1950s and 1960s by claiming an ability to solve complex social problems E. R. Chenier (&) Department of History, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC, Canada V5A 1S6 e-mail: echenier@sfu.ca
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disorders of desire sex and gender in modern american sexology revised and expanded form
Archives of Sexual Behavior, 2008Co-Authors: Elise ChenierAbstract:At the 2005 IASSAC conference, Irvine commented that if she were to write this book today she would approach her study of sex and gender in modern American sexology quite differently. Of course, few would write the same book twice, but Irvine was speaking directly to the shared sense of panic and despair U.S. scholars and activists expressed as they watched precious gains made in the 1970s and 1980s disappear faster than forces can be mobilized against the current assault on sexual rights and freedoms. As she remarks in the Afterword, critiques from the left were drowned out by the tidal wave of criticism from the right. Irvine’s comments were an apt reminder that whether we are constructing it, treating it, or writing about it, sex is politically charged territory where everyone has a position. Fortunately, the publisher recognizes that this volume’s sociohistorical analysis of modern American sexology is as relevant to readers today as it was when first released in 1990 (see Turner, 1992). Reissued in expanded form, the returning reader is offered additional material in the form of a short preface, Chapter 7 (which first appeared as an article in a 1993 issue of Social Text), and an Afterword that brings the book, and some of its arguments, up-to-date. Aside from minor editing for clarity, the original contents remain unchanged. Irvine’s approach refuses to assess the success—or failure—of any one technique, approach or theory. Like other historians of sexuality, she focuses on unpacking the cultural, ideological, and commercial foundations sexology rests upon. Influenced by social control and social construction theories, Irvine regards 20th century American sexologists as ‘‘agents for the medicalization of sex’’ (p. 243). A central theme that runs throughout the text is that sexology faces a double bind: on the one hand, because it relies on Scientific Rationality to stake a claim for cultural and political authority and legitimacy, sexology is doomed to fail since it refuses to engage with broader social and political theories of power and oppression. However, if it were to incorporate the critical insights of the feminist and gay activist left into their research and treatment approaches, sexology would have a tough time transforming their services and treatments into a viable product for the consumer marketplace. Social change will not occur when sex ‘‘problems’’ (many of which are constructed and defined by sexologists themselves) are treated as individual problems; neither can it be bought or sold in pharmaceutical or latex form. As she puts it, addressing social issues was ‘‘anathema to Masters, Johnson, and many other sexologists. In sex therapy, the ‘cure’ is orgasm, not social change. And this was vital, because orgasms can be marketed in a profit-making system, while social change cannot’’ (p. 149). Irvine’s broad thesis remains unchanged in the 2005 edition, except that now she regards bioscience and ‘‘Big Pharma’’ as the major challenge facing the future survival of sexology. To introduce this book to a new generation of scholars (and as a refresher for the rest of us), a brief recap is in order. Rather than focus on the ways that sexual ‘‘progressives’’ opened new discursive sites for the articulation of sexual politics outside of the moral paradigm that prevailed, section one focuses on the conservative leanings of ‘‘Scientific sexologists.’’ Irvine argues that unlike European sexologists whose professional origins were grounded in the fight for social equality and against discrimination, U.S. experts ultimately helped to create and police sociosexual boundaries by providing a pseudoScientific basis for gender and heteronormativity (p. 7). Sex researchers like Kinsey and Masters and Johnson gained a successful foothold in the culturally conservative 1950s and 1960s by claiming an ability to solve complex social problems E. R. Chenier (&) Department of History, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC, Canada V5A 1S6 e-mail: echenier@sfu.ca
Ala Samarapungavan - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Children's judgments in theory choice tasks: Scientific Rationality in childhood.
Cognition, 1992Co-Authors: Ala SamarapungavanAbstract:Abstract The current research examined whether children could use certain metaconceptual criteria such as the range of explanation, non-ad hocness of explanation, empirical consistency, amd logical consistency to choose between competing accounts of physical phenomena. The tasks were constructed so that the conceptual content of the explanations to be evaluated was either consistent, inconsistent, or neutral with regard to children's prior knowledge. It was found that even 7-year-olds could use metaconceptual criteria such as the range, empirical consistency, and logical consistency theories when the theories did not violate their beliefs. However only older children (11-year-olds) showed a systematic preference for non-ad hoc theories over ad hoc ones. The findings are consistent with recent work in the philosophy of science showing that, in evaluating theoretical alternatives, scientists are influenced by their prior beliefs about the domain being considered. This research demonstrates that even young children share some of the cognitive underpinnings of Scientific Rationality that scientists do.
Seamus Bradley - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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constraints on rational theory choice
The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 2017Co-Authors: Seamus BradleyAbstract:In a recent article, Samir Okasha presented an argument that suggests that there is no rational way to choose among Scientific theories. This would seriously undermine the view that science is a rational enterprise. In this article, I show how a suitably nuanced view of what Scientific Rationality requires allows us to sidestep this argument. In doing so, I present a new argument in favour of voluntarism of the type favoured by van Fraassen. I then show how such a view of Scientific Rationality gives a precise interpretation of what Thomas Kuhn thought.
H. Dessard - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Resilience and development: mobilizing for transformation
Ecology and Society, 2016Co-Authors: F. Bousquet, A. Botta, L. Alinovi, O. Barreteau, D. Bossio, K. Brown, P. Caron, M. D'errico, F. Declerck, H. DessardAbstract:In 2014, the Third International Conference on the resilience of social-ecological systems chose the theme 'resilience and development: mobilizing for transformation.' The conference aimed specifically at fostering an encounter between the experiences and thinking focused on the issue of resilience through a social and ecological system perspective, and the experiences focused on the issue of resilience through a development perspective. In this perspectives piece, we reflect on the outcomes of the meeting and document the differences and similarities between the two perspectives as discussed during the conference, and identify bridging questions designed to guide future interactions. After the conference, we read the documents (abstracts, PowerPoints) that were prepared and left in the conference database by the participants (about 600 contributions), and searched the web for associated items, such as videos, blogs, and tweets from the conference participants. All of these documents were assessed through one lens: what do they say about resilience and development? Once the perspectives were established, we examined different themes that were significantly addressed during the conference. Our analysis paves the way for new collective developments on a set of issues: (1) Who declares/assign/cares for the resilience of what, of whom? (2) What are the models of transformations and how do they combine the respective role of agency and structure? (3) What are the combinations of measurement and assessment processes? (4) At what scale should resilience be studied? Social transformations and Scientific approaches are coconstructed. For the last decades, development has been conceived as a modernization process supported by Scientific Rationality and technical expertise. The definition of a new perspective on development goes with a negotiation on a new Scientific approach. Resilience is presently at the center of this negotiation on a new science for development.
Eva E Johansson - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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gender perspective in medicine a vital part of medical Scientific Rationality a useful model for comprehending structures and hierarchies within medical science
BMC Medicine, 2006Co-Authors: Gunilla Risberg, Katarina Hamberg, Eva E JohanssonAbstract:During the past few decades, research has reported gender bias in various areas of clinical and academic medicine. To prevent such bias, a gender perspective in medicine has been requested, but difficulties and resistance have been reported from implementation attempts. Our study aimed at analysing this resistance in relation to what is considered good medical research. We used a theoretical model, based on Scientific competition, to understand the structures of Scientific medicine and how they might influence the resistance to a gender perspective in medicine. The model was originally introduced to discuss how pluralism improves Rationality in the social sciences. The model provided a way to conceptualise different fields of research in medicine: basic research, applied research, medical philosophy, and 'empowering' research. It clarified how various research approaches within medicine relate to each other, and how they differ and compete. It also indicated why there might be conflicts between them: basic and applied research performed within the biomedical framework have higher status than gender research and other research approaches that are performed within divergent research paradigms. This hierarchy within medical research contributes to the resistance to a gender perspective, causing gender bias and making medical Scientific Rationality suboptimal. We recommend that the theoretical model can be applied in a wider medical context when different and hierarchically arranged research traditions are in conflict. In this way, the model might contribute to shape a medical community where Scientific pluralism is acknowledged to enlarge, not to disturb, the Scientific Rationality of medicine.
