Descriptive Practices and Values in Endocrine Disruption Research
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Descriptive Practices and Values in Endocrine Disruption Research A Dissertation SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA BY John Douglas Powers IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Alan Love August 2016 © John Douglas Powers 2016 i Acknowledgements I wish to thank my parents, Martha and Billy Carr, and Doug and Geni Powers, for their love and support. Thanks to my advisor, Alan Love, for being a great coach. Thanks to my committee, Naomi Scheman, Ruth Shaw, Ken Waters, and Bill Wimsatt for their encouragement and criticisms. Thanks to Sandra Peterson and Geoffrey Hellman for comments on Chapter 2. Thanks to Heather Douglas, Ingo Brigandt, Melanie Bowman, Esther Rosario, Kevin Elliott, and Ted Richards for comments on Chapter 3. Thanks to the benefactors of the Tom Lapic Memorial Fellowship, the Tan Spark Fellowship, and the Douglas E. Lewis Fellowship for supporting my research. Thanks to the Navarro lab at Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México for coffee and a workspace. Thanks to Mary and Nathan Gass for the laughs, love, and airport shuttling. Thanks to Will Bausman and Matthew Ruble for good conversations and great climbs. Thanks to my grandparents, Pat and Snook Powers, and Evelyn Parker for their generosity and love. Thanks to the Chávez and Huelgas families, and Doña Marie, for making me feel at home. Thanks to the BIG and BIG-WIG discussion groups, and the Minnesota Center for Philosophy of Science for an education that cannot be found anywhere else. Thanks to Anita Wallace, Judy Grandbois, and Pam Groscost for keeping me on track. Thanks to Valerie Tiberius for her leadership and kind words. Thanks to Michael Calasso for the pasta and commiseration. Thanks to the Clarkrange cabin crew for the tough love and for always welcoming me home. Thanks to Patty Derycke for her love and wisdom, and to Bob Derycke for introducing me to the joy of dialogue. Thanks to John Nolt and Lee Shepski for helping me to pursue philosophy professionally. Lee, you are missed. Finally, thanks to Gabriela Huelgas Morales, for her sweetness, brilliance, and grace (and the figures in Chapter 4). Te necesito todos los días. ii Dedication This thesis is dedicated to scientists who work for the sake of human wellbeing and protection of the environment. iii Abstract This work is a philosophical analysis of descriptive practices and values in endocrine disruption research. Chapter 1 provides an accessible overview. In Chapter 2, I develop a nonreductionist epistemology of research into the endocrine disrupting properties of the herbicide atrazine. I argue that criteria of adequacy governing descriptive practices in atrazine research serve to help organize and coordinate the activities and contributions of researchers from diverse disciplinary backgrounds. In Chapter 3, I examine the influence of non-epistemic values on terminology choice in endocrine disruption research. Researchers face choices about whether or not to use gendered language to describe the harmful effects of atrazine. I argue that such choices are locations of “inductive risk.” In Chapter 4, I examine traditional “global demarcation” approaches for recognizing science that is problematically value-laden. I argue that global demarcation projects as currently undertaken are unlikely to meet their aims and suggest an alternative approach. This alternative approach reinterprets global demarcation projects as providing prima facie principles of good science. The prima facie principles resulting from such modest demarcation projects are to be integrated with appeals to local criteria of adequacy for scientific practices, and principles of inference for illicit influences of values in science. I illustrate this approach using a case of industry funded pesticide research. In Chapter 5, I argue that choices about whether to be a monist or pluralist about scientific terms depend on the epistemic and nonepistemic goals and values of debate participants. I illustrate by analyzing monism and pluralism about the terms ‘potency’ and ‘endocrine disruptor’ in recent endocrine disruption debates. iv Table of Contents ACKNOWLEDGMENTS .............................................................................................................. i DEDICATION ................................................................................................................................ ii ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................................... iii LIST OF TABLES ...........................................................................................................................v LIST OF FIGURES ....................................................................................................................... vi CHAPTERS CHAPTER 1 – .................................................................................................................................1 CHAPTER 2 – .................................................................................................................................7 CHAPTER 3 – The Inductive Risk of “Demasculinization” .........................................................44 CHAPTER 4– Global Demarcations, Local Criteria, and Evidence of Bias .................................70 CHAPTER 5– Monism, Pluralism and Values: Lessons from Endocrine Disruptor Debates ....107 BIBLIOGRAPHY ........................................................................................................................128 v List of Tables TABLE 1 .......................................................................................................................................19 TABLE 2 ........................................................................................................................................30 TABLE 3 ........................................................................................................................................35 vi List of Figures FIGURE 1 .....................................................................................................................................92 FIGURE 2 ....................................................................................................................................101 1 Chapter 1: Overview This dissertation is comprised of four relatively independent essays analyzing descriptive practices and values in endocrine disruption research. Endocrines, or hormones, are molecules that act as messengers between the various tissues and organs of biological organisms. Although scientists have recognized since the early 20th century that substances from outside the body can impact the function of endocrine systems, modern endocrine disruption research began in the early 1990s with the work of Theo Colborn and her colleagues. Colborn was puzzled by a wide range of reproductive, behavioral, and developmental abnormalities in wildlife that were cropping up regularly in the scientific literature and in the reports of amateur naturalists. These abnormalities did not seem to be explained by the presence of any then-recognized toxins. Colburn hypothesized that manmade chemicals that were not then known to be toxic might be interfering with the endocrine systems of wildlife and thereby causing the abnormalities. Colburn thought that these same chemicals were also likely to be acting on humans. She claimed that traditional toxicological tests were missing a large class of chemicals that posed serious health risks to humans and the environment. The publication of Colburn’s early work has sparked 25 years of intense research and controversy. Although governments and NGOs have implemented endocrine disruptor screening and testing programs, and issued reports on the impacts of endocrine 2 disruptors, the goals and standards of these programs and the findings of these reports have been contested at every turn. Traditional toxicologists have been resistant to making the methodological revisions recommended by Colburn and her allies. Emerging endocrinological approaches to toxicology have suggested that even the revised test methods may fail to detect a wide range of endocrine disruption effects. For every report that concludes that endocrine disrupting chemicals pose significant health risks, chemical manufacturers have commissioned scientists to craft rebuttals. Adding to the controversies, feminists have highlighted the ways in which endocrine disruption researchers often characterize the pernicious effects of endocrine disrupting chemicals by using problematic gendered language like “feminization” and “demasculinization.” These controversies have prominent social, moral, and political dimensions. Many endocrine disruption researchers are deeply concerned about the public health impacts of failing to adequately test and regulate endocrine disrupting chemicals. Chemical manufacturers are likewise concerned to avoid burdensome regulations. Feminists are worried that the language used by endocrine disruption researchers might contribute to misogynistic social attitudes and problematic stereotypes of LGBTQ communities. Thus, parties with different social, moral, and political interests offer very different perspectives on how endocrine disruption research ought to be conducted and interpreted. 3 There is a philosophical view about science, prominent among mid 20th century philosophers of science, that scientific reasoning ought to be free from the influence