Elisabeth Anne Lloyd(born September 3, 1956) is an Americanphilosopher of sciencespecialising in thephilosophy of biology.She is currentlyDistinguished Professorof History and Philosophy of Science and Medicine - as well as Adjunct Professor of biology - atIndiana University, Bloomington,affiliated faculty scholar at theKinsey Instituteand Adjunct Faculty at the Center for the Integrative Study of Animal Behavior.[1]
Education and career
editLloyd was born inMorristown, New Jersey,and earned her BA in science and political theory fromUniversity of Colorado, Boulderin 1980, summa cum laude. Lloyd studied underBas van FraassenatPrinceton Universityfor a PhD in philosophy 1980 – 1984. While a student at Princeton, she spent a year (1983) studying withRichard C. LewontinatHarvard'sMuseum of Comparative Zoology.[2]
She worked as an assistant professor in the Department of Philosophy atUniversity of California, San Diego,1985–88; and then was assistant professor, then associate professor, then full professor in the Department of Philosophy at theUniversity of California, Berkeleyfrom 1988 to 1999, before moving toIndiana University.
In 2022, she was elected a Fellow of theAmerican Academy of Arts & Sciences.[3]
Philosophical work
editHer 2005 book,The Case of the Female Orgasm,was widely discussed in the scholarly and popular press, includingIsis,NatureandThe New York Times.[4]The book criticizes what it portrays as anti-scientific biases infecting the many proposed adaptive explanations of female orgasm. Lloyd goes on to argue that the available evidence, such as from sexology studies, is far more supportive of a neutral "byproduct" explanation put forward byDonald Symons,under which female orgasm is the result of orgasm developing as a species trait due to its critical role in males for procreation (akin to explanations for why nipples, which are required for nursing in females, are also present in males). The book received so much attention that it was lampooned on an episode ofSaturday Night Livebecause its title sounds like a racy version of aHardy Boysnovel. Lloyd had been working on the subject for two years, when a discussion withStephen Jay Gouldin 1986 led to her providing the basis for his 1987 essay inNatural Historytitled 'Freudian Slip',[5]which was reprinted in 1992 as 'Male Nipples and Clitoral Ripples.'[6]
In 2001,Michigan Law Reviewpublished her essay "Science Gone Astray: Evolution and Rape" that criticizedRandy Thornhilland Craig T. Palmer's famous workA Natural History of Rapefor "glaring flaws in their science."[7]
Bibliography
edit- The Structure and Confirmation of Evolutionary Theory,Greenwood Press, 1988 (Reprinted Princeton University Press, 1994ISBN0-691-00046-8).
- Keywords in Evolutionary Biology(co-edited withEvelyn Fox Keller), Harvard University Press, 1992 (reprinted 1998ISBN0-674-50313-9).
- The Case of the Female Orgasm: Bias in the Science of Evolution,Harvard University Press, 2005 (new edition, 2006ISBN0-674-02246-7).
- Science, Politics and Evolution,Cambridge University Press, 2008 (ISBN9780521865708).
- Climate Modelling: Philosophical and Conceptual Issues(co-edited withEric Winsberg) Palgrave MacMillan, 2018
See also
editReferences
edit- ^url=https://biology.indiana.edu/about/faculty/lloyd-elisabeth-a.htmlArchived2017-07-11 at theWayback Machine
- ^Lloyd, E.A. 1994. The Structure and Confirmation of Evolutionary Theory. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, p. xi.
- ^"New Members".American Academy of Arts & Sciences.
- ^Smith, Dinitia (17 May 2005)."A Critic Takes on the Logic of Female Orgasm".The New York Times.
- ^Gould, S.J. (1987). Freudian Slip.Natural History 96(2): 14-21.
- ^Gould, S.J. (1992). Male Nipples and Clitoral Ripples. InBully for Brontosaurus:Further Reflections in Natural History.London: Penguin Books. pp.124-138.
- ^Lloyd, Elisabeth A. (2001)."Science Gone Astray: Evolution and Rape".Michigan Law Review.99(6): 1536–1559.doi:10.2307/1290397.JSTOR1290397.Retrieved23 July2022.