Our conclusion is, thus,merely a moral imperative against conducting, supporting, or funding such re-search.

they stress how concerned theyfeel

Of course, we concur that one must be careful to avoid any general “dis-couragement to conduct studies or publish findings that may be counter todominant views”

With respect to the hypothesis of anthropogenic climatechange (Hacc), two political asymmetries (PA) and one epistemic asymmetry(EA) hold:(PA1) If research on Hacc is pursued, and if the evidence is taken to favorthe hypothesis ∼Hacc, then there will be (at least) a partial reversion to∼Hacc among members of the public in that belief in ∼Hacc becomes stron-ger; in contrast, if the evidence is taken to favor Hacc, there will be no sig-nificant further removal of the residues of ∼Hacc.(PA2) If belief in ∼Hacc becomes widespread, then the quality of the livesof those affected by climate change will be further reduced through the with-drawal of existing programs of climate change mitigation and adaptation. . . .(EA1) There are significant differences between the probabilities as-signed to ∼Hacc and the probabilities that would be assigned by usingthe most reliable methods for assessing evidence; the probabilities as-signed to ∼Hacc by members of society will typically exceed the probabil-ities that reliable methods would yield, and the probabilities assigned toHacc correspondingly will be reduced. (Leuschner 2018, 1263–64

I guess men will just need to acceptbeing discriminated against because . . . why?

4. Attacks against Researchers in Gender Studies

2

We would like to acknowledge that Ceci and Williams describe women’s individualchoices as being “freely made or constrained”

cause of women’s under-representation in STEM

“that the overall state of the academy is largely one ofgender neutrality”

s based on a reviewof correlational studies (i.e., studies investigating correlations between sexand disadvantages in academia), concluding that gender discrimination inacademia no longer exists

3. Methodological Concerns Regarding Ceci and Williams’s Research

wrongly accepting the hypothesis thatthere is gender bias in academia would lead to measures supporting womenacademics even though they were not required. This would be both costly touniversities and unfair to men, while wrongly rejecting the hypothesis would,however, be especially harmful to women

we argue

in the society in which it is embedded

IndRA

lest contrarians ‘attack us

(2011, 137; see also Brysse et al. 2013;Lewandowsky et al. 2015; Medimorec and Pennycook 2015)

dissident

dissent

contrarian scientists

Thus, dissent meeting these conditions is epistemically detrimental as itaffects academic debate.

2. The Inductive Risk Account of Epistemically Detrimental Dissent.

6. Conclusion.

they conclude by explic-itly rejecting the existence of gender bias in the academy

They find that women doc-torates in math-intensive fields

(Ceci andWilliams 2011, 3161)

it is reasonable to conclude that gender bias plays a significantrole in causing and reproducing the underrepresentation of women in manyacademic fields

has been subjected

(NSF 2019)

to be employed at a lower rate

women represent only 19% of graduates in physics, 29% in mathe-matics and statistics, 24% in engineering, and 20% in computer science(NSB 2018

Introduction

Gender bias is a recalcitrant problem in academia and society. However, dissent has beencreated on this issue. We focus on dissenting studies by Stephen J. Ceci and Wendy M.Williams, arguing that they reach conclusions that are unwarranted on the basis of theavailable evidence and that they ignore fundamental objections to their methodologicaldecisions. Drawing on discussions from other contexts, particularly on manufactured dis-sent concerning anthropogenic climate change, we conclude that dissent on gender biassubstantially contributes to (a) the exacerbation of biases in society and (b) an increasingnumber of attacks on researchers, making it both epistemically and socially problematic

How Dissent on Gender Bias in AcademiaAffects Science and Society: Learning fromthe Case of Climate Change Denial

Anna Leuschner and Manuela Fernández Pinto

REFERENCES

Bostrom, Nick. “Infinite Ethics.” Analysis and Metaphysics 10 (2011): 9–59

References

we think

If your attitudes cannot get too far out of proportion, then in weightier worlds you may care less about anything in particular.

Such a theory says that how weighty a thing is depends on whose perspective we assess it from.

t seems to imply

Congruity

ustified by intuitive fit alone.

“the collision between the seriousness with which we take our own lives and the perpetual possibility of regarding everything about which we are serious as arbitrary.”

Suppose such facts had normative mass

So both views attribute

Averagism

must

So these views differ on the importance of intrinsic duplicates.

it relates to something else

Intrinsicism says f is at least as important as g if and only if our view says f is at least as important as g

Intrinsicism

2.1. Intrinsicism

the fling probably makes up

you

And getting priority boarding? You can care hardly at all about that.

A weighty marriage may be one that is constituted by much joy and suffering.

Maybe fearsomeness matters.

Compare a long marriage to a short fling

one might think

normative mass

axiological

we cash out our notion of importance

how much it is per-missible for Adam to care about that thing

We think Proportionalism is tenable on either option

You need not be so devastated. You may, we think, cease taking yourself so seriously.

Lovett and Riedener

We

here is a certain way it feels to care about something.

normativity

Their attitudes are out of whack

7

epistemic permissibility.

I( f ) = NM( f ) .NM(U)

ESR(Develop) = (0.5 × ¼) + (0.5 × -2/40) = 0.1,ESR(Do Not Develop) = (0.5 × 0/4) + (0.5 × 0/40) = 0.

ESR(A) = ∑i Ri(A) × Pr(Si)

For something to be important, in our sense, is not for it to be worth promoting. Our notion is instead understood in terms of fitting attitudes.

1. Characterizing Importance

Some philosophers

normativity

But let us not get ahead of ourselves. We will first locate the notion of importance that matters to Proportionalism

6

He says: “We might constitute a minute portion of the whole, but that does not detract from our absolute importance” (“In-finite Ethics,” 10). In other words, he dismisses Proportionalism out of hand. We have come across no other prior discussion of Proportionalism.

Some people,

diminish its

A drought has caused the har-vest to fail. She does not have enough food. You donate one hundred dollars to the Red Cross and that gets her the food she desperately needs. This is a good thing, and for a while it seems you have done something very important.

7. Conclusion

Glover and Scott-Taggart,

229

230

It says that a thing’s importance de-pends on how big a proportional contribution it makes to the world’s total value. For example, consider the addition of one happy life.

The number of happy lives in the universe affects the importance of the addition of one more happy life. We will call this view Proportionalism.

Adam Lovett and Stefan Riedener

New York University

University of Zurich