However, shortly after this blooming, we find Richard Feynman expressing his contempt for philosophy of science as a discipline that had become dominated by non-scientists, a dismissal that rings even truer today.

What Is Life? is a fine example of philosophy meeting biology and producing quality interdisciplinary work. The molecular biology revolution was a practical outworking of the philosophical appetite of the time, well expressed by Schrödinger. Unless one credits Aristotle et al, philosophy of science as an academic discipline is little more than a century old. It aims to critically analyse and reflect on what science is, how it works, and the questions it asks. It puts another eye on the game, distinct from its partners, history of science and sociology of science. (I admit that I care little for sociology of science, which treats science more as a human activity than as a way of discovering actual reality ‘out there’ in nature.)

This brings me to Feynman’s distaste for the discipline. By the time he won his Nobel in 1965, it would be fair to say that philosophy of science was no longer the same field as it had been: now, it was full of musings from those in the humanities. ‘How dare these outsiders tell us what is really going on?’ was the attitude of those in Feynman’s camp. How can those who have not done any science critique what is being done by scientists, analyse what is wrong with it, and discuss its true value? It all added up to a waste of time and money for Feynman.

Fast forward to our modern challenges. Recently, I was shocked to read that the controversial postmodern ideologue Judith Butler is considered a philosopher of biology. Butler’s writings on gender, for those unfamiliar with them, have been fairly criticised for so severely underplaying the biological component of gender that you would be forgiven for thinking that biology plays no part in our development. She was also the winner of the 1998 ‘Bad Writing Contest’, hosted by the journal Philosophy and Literature, for an incomprehensible sentence in one of her articles.¹

But the characterization of Butler as a philosopher of biology is not (entirely) wrong. If an informed layperson were asked to name one modern philosopher of biology, they might well name Butler. But she is as far removed as someone in academia could be from the sciences. Her education is in literature, feminism, and philosophy, and she owes more to Hegel than to Schrödinger. Someone who believes that sex is assigned at birth rather than observed by a doctor has no business in philosophy of biology. (Other feminists who might be considered philosophers of biology, like the excellent Kathleen Stock, are much more worth listening to.)

There is a straight line to be drawn from Butler’s work to those in the humanities who now claim that biological sex itself does not exist—as anti-scientific a statement as one will ever hear. Eighty years on from What Is Life?, Feynman’s contempt is even more justified. Now, so-called experts from the humanities dominate philosophy of science and are boosting the cause of science denialism more than anyone else even as they claim to be working against it.

It is time to return philosophy of science to those who respect both philosophy of science and science itself. To be clear, there are a great many philosophers of science today who are intimately acquainted with the realities of science and who are doing first-class work in legitimate journals. They treat the discipline with the original, historical respect that it deserves. Their work would not be out of place amongst the reflections written by the giants of the field’s golden era. In other words, there is a universe of difference between Judith Butler and someone like Michael Ruse. As a whole, though, the field is in dire straits.

Let me share a personal anecdote to illustrate what is missing in philosophy of biology. Three years ago, during an interview for a PhD position at a major British university, my surprised potential supervisor halted the interview about thirty seconds in. ‘Hold on, it says here that you have an actual science degree?’ I could not hide my own surprise and affirmed that that was correct. She then put down her papers and remarked, ‘Well, that is a tremendous advantage for you. Do you have ambitions of working in academia?’ I told her that that was very much my dream, but I failed to hide the surprise still written across my face. The interview shifted and I became the one asking questions: Did most professional philosophers of science not have a science background? Apparently not—and it seemed that if I wanted to get ahead, I was in possession of a serious advantage.

One does not have to be a scientist to be a historian or philosopher of science, but today as much as ever, scientists are needed to contribute to philosophy of science. Otherwise, those who have no business speaking in the name of science are gifted large platforms to mislead a general public that might not know any better. This is also why skilled science communicators are so desperately needed.

When one looks at the great names who gave the twentieth-century Gifford Lectures or the Eddington Memorial Lectures, one sees an extraordinary array. There are prize winners and legends from some of science’s golden eras. They each speak philosophically about the questions or meanings of their work or reflect on what the future may hold. This tradition survives today, among the likes of Lord Martin Rees and Sir Roger Penrose, but it is attenuated. Rees and Penrose certainly deserve a greater platform than Butler et al.

Perhaps the problem is one of space as much as communication skills. The platforms for great philosophers of science, or scientist philosophers, are not proportionate to their contributions. Education is also lacking, as undergraduate philosophy programs hardly ever feature philosophy of science in their curricula. Unfortunately, I have also sat through many philosophy lectures that are anti-scientific, pseudoscientific, or just plain mistaken. In continental philosophy and postmodern departments, science is very much the enemy: it is an oppressive force invented by white Western men to establish the patriarchy and is unable to make any claims to truth or reality. This is a very serious problem at a time when science needs to be understood more than ever.

The solution may well be to give scientists a larger platform in society. Post-pandemic, distrust in science (and expertise in general) has increased, even as science—from developments in artificial intelligence to revolutions in cancer research—has become more important than ever for our present and future. Each Sunday morning as I drive through Beaconsfield’s old town on the outskirts of London, I see protestors clad in white inviting us to toot our car horns if we agree with them on the latest conspiratorial, anti-science propaganda they are spouting. At first it was amusing, but now it simply depresses me.

In the space of eighty years, and to an alarming extent, philosophy of science has degenerated. Once, it inspired revolutionary breakthroughs. Now, it is dominated by thinkers who have not seen a laboratory or an observatory since high school and who use their platforms to disseminate nonsense. They have helped to usher in a conspiratorial atmosphere laced with distrust of and cynicism about the sciences. To combat them, we need to recover our sense about science.

1. Take a deep breath:
   
   ‘The move from a structuralist account in which capital is understood to structure social relations in relatively homologous ways to a view of hegemony in which power relations are subject to repetition, convergence, and rearticulation brought the question of temporality into the thinking of structure, and marked a shift from a form of Althusserian theory that takes structural totalities as theoretical objects to one in which the insights into the contingent possibility of structure inaugurate a renewed conception of hegemony as bound up with the contingent sites and strategies of the rearticulation of power.’ ︎

Related reading

On sex, gender and their consequences: interview with Louise Antony, by Emma Park

‘We are at a threshold right now’: Lawrence Krauss on science, atheism, religion, and the crisis of ‘wokeism’ in science, by Daniel James Sharp

Consciousness, free will and meaning in a Darwinian universe: interview with Daniel C. Dennett, by Daniel James Sharp

‘When the chips are down, the philosophers turn out to have been bluffing’, interview with Alex Byrne by Emma Park

‘A godless neo-religion’ – interview with Helen Joyce on the trans debate, by Emma Park

‘An animal is a description of ancient worlds’: interview with Richard Dawkins, by Emma Park

The falsehood at the heart of the trans movement, by Eliza Mondegreen

South Asia’s silenced feminists, by Kunwar Khuldune Shahid

Linnaeus, Buffon, and the battle for biology, by Charles Foster

The post 80 years on from Schrödinger’s ‘What Is Life?’, philosophy of biology needs rescuing from radicals appeared first on The Freethinker.

Young people are fed up with the often prudish, vague, and incomplete information about sex and relationships that they are getting from their teachers—and parents. So they are turning to often explicit TV series, and even online pornography, to get answers. Not a good move.

During my school talks on human rights, more than half the pupils describe their lessons about sex as ‘poor’, ‘inadequate’, and ‘out of touch’. 

Little wonder that millions of young people are entering adulthood emotionally and sexually ill-prepared. Too many subsequently endure disordered relationships, ranging from unfulfilling to outright abusive.

The result? Much unhappiness—and sometimes mental and physical ill-health. We need to change that.

One problem is that a lot of Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) classes still concentrate on the biological facts of reproduction and on using a condom to prevent HIV. Relatively little teaching is actually about sex—or feelings and relationships.

Also, RSE frequently starts too late, after many young people have become sexually active and adopted bad habits such as unsafe sex. These are harder to reverse once established.

While RSE should not encourage early sex (it is best if young people wait), it should prepare them for a later satisfying, safe sexual and emotional life.

What, then, needs to change in order to make RSE more effective?

Young people’s health and welfare must take priority over squeamishness and embarrassment about sex. Political, religious, and cultural sensitivities cannot be allowed to thwart mandatory age-appropriate RSE in every school, from the first year of primary education onwards.

It is time that RSE is revised radically. Based on listening to young people’s own ideas during my talks in schools, here are some suggestions.

Mandatory High Quality Lessons in Every School

RSE is now mandatory but for some schools its provision smacks of a tick-box exercise, with the lessons offered being infrequent, inadequate, and not meeting pupils’ needs. This is not good enough. Sex and relationships are a very important part of most adults’ lives. That’s why high-standard education about them should happen in every school, with no opt-outs for religious schools and independent schools outside the state sector. The aim should be to prepare young people for adult life by ensuring they are sexually and emotionally literate.

RSE lessons should be at least monthly throughout a child’s school life—not once a term or once a year. And the lessons should be LGBT+ inclusive.

Education From the First Year of Primary School

RSE needs to be age-appropriate. It should start from the first year of primary school by talking about love and relationships, including non-traditional families (such as single-parent, extended, and same-sex families).

It should also discuss the correct names for body parts and the physical changes that occur at puberty. To tackle abuse, grooming, and inappropriate touching, children should be taught the difference between caring and exploitative behaviours.

One reason for starting young is that many children now begin puberty between the ages of eight and twelve. Long beforehand, they need to know about the physical and hormonal changes they will undergo, like body hair growth and erections in boys and menstruation in girls. Keeping them ignorant threatens their happiness and welfare.

Sex Is Good for You

RSE lessons should acknowledge the risks and dangers of sex, but from the age of 16 they should also recognise its pleasures—and that sex is good for us. It is natural, wholesome, fun, and (with safe sex) healthy. Quality sex can have a beneficial effect on our mental and physical well-being.

Young people also have a right to know that sex is not essential for health and happiness. Some people are asexual. They get by without sex and that’s fine. However, pupils should know that most people find that regular, fulfilling sex lifts their spirits and enhances their lives and relationships.

Overcoming Sex Shame to Tackle Abuse

Sexual guilt, most of it religious-inspired, causes immense human misery— it leads not only to frustrated, unhappy sex lives but actual psychological and physical ill-health. It also helps sustain child sex abuse.

Adults who sexually exploit youngsters often get away with it because the victims feel embarrassed or guilty about sex and are therefore reluctant to report it.

RSE needs to encourage young people to have more open, positive attitudes towards sexual matters and to teach them how to accurately name their body parts, in order to effectively report abuse. Pupils who are knowledgeable about their bodies and feel at ease talking about sex are more likely to disclose abuse and report their abusers.

How to Have Sexual Fulfilment

Good sex isn’t obvious; it has to be learned. In the absence of sufficient practical information from parents and teachers on how to achieve shared sexual pleasure, many young people are turning to pornography, with its unrealistic and often degrading images.

To ensure happier, more fulfilled relationships in adulthood, RSE for pupils aged 16-plus should include advice on how to achieve mutually fulfilling, high-quality sex, including the emotional and erotic value of foreplay; the multitude of erogenous zones and how to excite them; and the various methods to achieve pleasure for oneself and one’s partner. This is particularly important for boys who often know little about female sexual anatomy and how to give a female partner fulfilment.

Ethical Framework: Mutual Consent, Respect & Fulfilment

It is important that RSE acknowledges diverse sexual orientations, gender identities, and relationship types, while also giving teenagers guidance on their rights and responsibilities—including teaching about consent and abuse issues.

A positive ethical framework for sex can be summed up in three very simple principles: mutual consent, reciprocal respect, and shared fulfilment.

The great advantage of these three principles is that they apply universally, regardless of whether people are married or single, monogamous or promiscuous, heterosexual, bisexual, gay, lesbian, trans, or intersex.

Promoting Safer Alternatives: Oral Sex & Mutual Masturbation

If schools are serious about cutting the incidence of teen pregnancies, abortions, and HIV and other sexual infections, they should highlight to pupils aged 16 and older the various safer, healthier alternatives to vaginal and anal intercourse.

Oral sex and mutual masturbation, for example, carry no risk of conception and a much lower risk of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases.

The most effective way to persuade teenagers to switch to these alternatives is by making them sound and look appealing, glamorous, and sexy. Teachers need to explain that they are not a sacrifice or second best; that they can also be sexually fulfilling. It’s time to talk up and emphasise their advantages over intercourse: no worries about unwanted pregnancies, reduced HIV risk, and no need to use the pill or condoms.

While mutual masturbation is very safe, young people should be made aware that oral sex is safer than intercourse but not entirely risk-free.

Lessons ought also to include the advice that if young people become sexually active it is recommended that they get vaccinated against HPV and hepatitis. These vaccinations should be offered at every school.

Sexual Rights Are Human Rights

RSE should be based on, and espouse, the principle that it is a fundamental human right to love an adult person of any sex or gender identity, to engage in any mutually consensual, harmless sexual act with them, and to share a happy, healthy sex life.

These are the sexual human rights of every person. Everyone also has the human right not to have sex if they do not wish to do so.

Hetero, Homo, and Bi Are Equally Valid

When based on the three principles of mutual consent, respect, and fulfilment between adults, all relationships with persons of any sex are equally morally valid.

While schools should not promote any particular sexual orientation, they should encourage understanding and acceptance of heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, asexual, and pansexual orientations—and transgender and intersex identities. This is vital to ensure self-acceptance by pupils with such orientations or identities, and to help combat prejudice, discrimination, bullying, and hate crime.

The Right to Sexual Self-Determination

The principle ‘It’s my body and my right to control it’ should be promoted in every school to ensure that young people assert their right to determine what they, and others, do with their bodies—including the right to abstain from sex, say ‘no’ to unwanted sex, and to report sexual abusers.

This ethos of sexual self-determination and the ‘right to choose’ is crucial to thwart people who attempt to pressure youngsters into sex, abusive relationships, and risky sex.

Live & Let Live

Human sexuality embraces a glorious diversity of emotions and desires. We are all unique, with our own individual tastes. People are emotionally and sexually fulfilled in a huge variety of different ways.

Providing that sexual behaviour is consensual and between adults, where no one is harmed and the enjoyment is reciprocal, schools should adopt a non-judgemental ‘live and let live’ attitude when teaching RSE.

Advice on Internet Safety

Widespread access to the internet and social media has exposed many young people to pornography and sexting and the risks of grooming, abuse, and online harassment. These issues, and how to stay safe online, need to be a cornerstone of RSE lessons, so that teens can be aware of the dangers and protect themselves.

Pornography

Porn is ubiquitous and easy to access. Most young people have watched it. There needs to be frank discussions about the issue: young people need to be told that it is unrealistic to expect from a partner the sexual acrobatics and hours-long sex of porn stars. Also, the often abusive and humiliating and violent nature of pornography needs to be challenged; it should be explained that this is not the right way to treat a partner and will not lead to a happy, healthy relationship. And it should be made clear that sexual violence is against the law and carries severe penalties.

Respect for Sexual Diversity

Our desires and temperaments are not the same. There is no ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach when it comes to sex, love, and relationships. If these fall within the ethical framework of adult mutual consent, respect, and fulfilment, it is not the business of RSE to promote sexual conformity or to neglect the reality of sexual diversity.

Give Pupils All the Facts

Sex education from the age of 16 ought to tell the whole truth about every kind of sex and relationship—including sexual practices that some people may find distasteful, like rimming and bondage.

The purpose of such frankness is not to encourage these practices but to help pupils deal with them if they encounter them in later life. This includes advising them of their right to refuse to participate in sexual practices that they dislike or object to.

Restricted Parental Opt-out

We don’t let parents take their kids out of science or history classes, so why should a parental opt-out be permitted for RSE? Removing pupils from such lessons jeopardises their emotional, sexual, and physical health.

Parents who want to withdraw their children should be required to come to each lesson and physically remove their child, and then bring them back in good time for the next lesson. This way the parental opt-out option is retained but the actual opt-out rate is likely to be reduced.

Conclusion

Most young people say they want earlier, more detailed, and franker RSE lessons. We should listen to their concerns and ensure that schools give them the information they need to protect themselves and their partners. Over to you, Education Secretary.

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