There’s a new kind of science in town — a “feminist” one — and its proponents are looking to alter some of the basic tenets of scientific investigation.

Harvard University is inviting students this fall to “reimagine the structure of scientific inquiry” based on “feminist methodologies,” as Campus Reform reported.

A class called “Transforming Scientific Knowledge: Science and Feminism” continues the modern tradition of challenging academic modes of inquiry through repurposing them to serve various social justice causes.

Professor Heather Shattuck-Heidorn, a biological anthropologist, will offer the four-credit course through the Studies of Women, Gender and Sexuality department.

“How have feminism and gender theory influenced the practice of science?” the course description asks. “What are feminist methodologies, and how do they shape research agendas in fields such as genetics, human biology, biotechnology, and medicine?”

“We will explore how working scientists use gender analysis to shape research choices, frame hypotheses, and reimagine the structure of scientific inquiry,” it continues.

Nancy Naples, a leading feminist scholar referenced in Campus Reform’s reporting, argued in a widely cited article that the purpose of adopting feminist methodology is “to create knowledge for social-change purposes.”

This feminist agenda diverges from the well-known standard scientific method, which tests hypotheses against observations in order to develop knowledge. Feminist methodology is an “instrument” of discovery — and thus can be put toward any ultimate end the investigator chooses.

“Feminist methodology includes a wide range of methods, approaches, and research strategies,” according to Blackwell Reference Online. “Beginning in the early 1970s, feminist scholars critiqued positivist (emphasis added) scientific methods that reduced lived experiences to a series of disconnected variables that did not do justice to the complexities of social life.”

And what is positivism? “The basic affirmations of positivism are (1) that all knowledge regarding matters of fact is based on the ‘positive’ data of experience and (2) that beyond the realm of fact is that of pure logic and pure mathematics,” according to an entry in Encyclopedia Britannica.

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It would seem that fact, logic and mathematics should drive scientific inquiry — not the “complexities of social life.”

In other words, the scientific method and ethics are two different subjects; physics is not the same thing as metaphysics.

While it may be valid to probe the feminist point of view on scientific research agendas, it is highly questionable to argue there is a “feminist” mode of scientific inquiry that varies substantively from the widely accepted one.

Two similar courses, “Gender and Science” and “Feminist Science Studies,” offered by the Women and Public Policy program and the History of Science department, respectively, have also recently been offered at Harvard.

Kyle Becker is a content writer and producer with LifeZette. Follow him on Twitter