• Doing Things with Case Studies
    In Heidi Grasswick & Nancy Arden McHugh (eds.), Making the Case: Feminist and Critical Race Philosophers Engage Case Studies, Suny Press. pp. 151-176. 2021.
  •  10
    Fernald, RD 9, 16
    with R. Dunbar, J. Barman, A. Einstein, S. Empiricus, S. J. Gould, T. Grantham, M. Grene, P. Griffiths, and A. Guignard
    In James H. Fetzer (ed.), Consciousness Evolving, John Benjamins. pp. 247. 2002.
  •  23
    Feminism, Social Justice, and Artificial Intelligence
    Feminist Philosophy Quarterly 8 (3). 2022.
    Introduction to the special issue by editor Carla Fehr.
  •  15
    Culture, exploitation, and epistemic approaches to diversity
    with Janet Minji Jones
    Synthese 200 (6): 1-25. 2022.
    A lack of diversity remains a significant problem in many STEM communities. According to the epistemic approach to addressing these diversity problems, it is in a community’s interest to improve diversity because doing so can enhance the rigor and creativity of its work. However, we draw on empirical and theoretical evidence illustrating that this approach can trade on the epistemic exploitation of diverse community members. Our concept of epistemic exploitation holds when there is a relationshi…Read more
  •  26
    Values, practices, and metaphysical assumptions in the biological sciences
    with Sara Weaver
    In Ann Garry, Serene J. Khader & Alison Stone (eds.), The Routledge Companion to Feminist Philosophy, Routledge. pp. 314-328. 2017.
    The biological sciences provide ample opportunity and motivation for feminist interventions. These sciences are seen by many as an authority on human nature and are highly relevant to many issues of social justice and public policy. Feminist philosophy of biology focuses on the ethical and epistemic adequacy and responsibility of biological claims. This work is critical in the sense of identifying epistemically and ethically irresponsible knowledge claims, research practices, and dissemination o…Read more
  •  600
    I investigate the reciprocal relationship between social accounts of knowledge production and efforts to increase the representation of women and some minorities in the academy. In particular, I consider the extent to which feminist social epistemologies such as Helen Longino’s critical contextual empiricism can be employed to argue that it is in researchers’ epistemic interests to take active steps to increase gender diversity. As it stands, critical contextual empiricism does not provide enoug…Read more
  • The problem of the evolution of sexual reproduction represents a crisis within evolutionary biology. In light of his theory of evolution by natural selection, even Darwin could find no strong reason for the predominance of sex. He wrote that the "whole subject is as yet hidden in darkness." I employ the case study of the evolution of sex to fill a lacuna within current philosophy. The link between the philosophy of science, with its grand theories of explanation, and the philosophy of biology, w…Read more
  •  219
    Pluralism and sex: More than a pragmatic issue
    Proceedings of the Philosophy of Science Association 2001 (3). 2001.
    The evolution of sexual reproduction is a case of explanatory pluralism, meaning that there is more than one explanation for this phenomenon. I use the concept of a domain to more clearly explicate the various explananda that can be found in this case. I argue that although pluralism with respect to some types of domains can be decreased using van Fraassen’s pragmatics of explanation, there remains an important class of domain, an orthogonal domain, for which this is not the case.
  •  106
    Explanations of the evolution of sex: A plurality of local mechanisms
    In Stephen H. Kellert, Helen E. Longino & C. Kenneth Waters (eds.), Scientific Pluralism, Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, University of Minnesota Press. pp. 167-189. 2006.
    The evolutionary maintenance of sexual reproduction is a case of explanatory pluralism of central importance to evolutionary biology. I analyze this pluralism from an epistemological perspective. My thesis is that the various explanations of sex are explanatory by virtue of local factors and hence are importantly distinct from one another and cannot be subsumed under a single unifying framework. A critic may argue that philosophical accounts of mechanism can provide just such a framework. I show…Read more
  •  14
    Pluralism and Sex: More Than a Pragmatic Issue
    Philosophy of Science 68 (S3). 2001.
    The evolution of sexual reproduction is a case of explanatory pluralism, meaning that there is more than one explanation for this phenomenon. I use the concept of a domain to more clearly explicate the various explananda that can be found in this case. I argue that although pluralism with respect to some types of domains can be decreased using van Fraassen's pragmatics of explanation, there remains an important class of domain, an orthogonal domain, for which this is not the case.
  •  398
    This paper provides an argument for a more socially relevant philosophy of science (SRPOS). Our aims in this paper are to characterize this body of work in philosophy of science, to argue for its importance, and to demonstrate that there are significant opportunities for philosophy of science to engage with and support this type of research. The impetus of this project was a keen sense of missed opportunities for philosophy of science to have a broader social impact. We illustrate various ways i…Read more
  •  32
    During the scientific revolution reductionism and mechanism were introduced together. These concepts remained intertwined through much of the ensuing history of philosophy and science, resulting in the privileging of approaches to research that focus on the smallest bits of nature. This combination of concepts has been the object of intense feminist criticism, as it encourages biological determinism, narrows researchers’ choices of problems and methods, and allows researchers to ignore the conte…Read more
  •  25
    There is more than one explanation for the evolution of sexual reproduction. This paper investigates the possibility that this pluralism exists because these different explanations rely on intuitions provided by different philosophical theories of explanation, namely unifying views and causal mechanical views. I conclude that this is not the case.
  •  181
    Feminist Engagement with Evolutionary Psychology
    Hypatia 27 (1): 50-72. 2012.
    In this paper, I ask feminist philosophers and science studies scholars to consider the goals of developing critical analyses of evolutionary psychology. These goals can include development of scholarship in feminist philosophy and science studies, mediation of the uptake of evolutionary psychology by other academic and lay communities, and improvement of the practices and products of evolutionary psychology itself. I evaluate ways that some practices of feminist philosophy and science studies f…Read more
  •  70
    The evolution of sex: Domains and explanatory pluralism
    Biology and Philosophy 16 (2): 145-170. 2001.
    The evolution of sexual reproduction is a striking case of explanatory pluralism, meaning that one needs to refer to more than one explanation in order to adequately account for it. I develop the concept a domain of phenomena in order to analysis this pluralism. Pluralism exists when a phenomenon can be included in more that one homogeneous domain or in a heterogeneous domain. I argue that in some cases domain partitioning can be used to decrease pluralism, but that in the case of sex domains ar…Read more