Bonnie Spanier received her doctorate from Harvard University in Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, publishing on Newcastle disease (bird) virus infections at the molecular level. While teaching biology at Wheaton College in MA, she received grants from the (U.S.) National Institutes of Health and the American Lung Association. A grant from the Bunting Institute of Radcliffe College about Women in American Society catalyzed her move to develop pioneering feminist analyses of the sciences. Her book on the influence of sexist beliefs on the content of biology, IM/PARTIAL SCIENCE: GENDER IDEOLOGY IN MOLECULAR BIOLOGY (Indiana University Press, 1995) has been praised for its significance to physicians, scientists, and feminists. Other publications analyze the errors of biological determinist claims about differences between groups. Her more recent scholarship combines her advocacy and education work as a co-founder of the Capital Region Action Against Breast Cancer (CRAAB!) with her scientific and feminist analysis of the science and politics of breast cancer activism. Professor Spanier is also an internationally recognized consultant on women's studies and curriculum transformation, particularly in the natural sciences. Currently she is an Associate Professor in Women's Studies at the University at Albany, State University of New York.

Presentation: Why Feminist and Scientific Education Matters: How the U.S. Government Uses Bogus Science to Constrain Women's Control over Their Own Reproduction and Sexuality

The U.S. government under recent Republican leaders, from President Reagan to current President GW Bush, has made it a top priority to curtail the rights of women to control our own reproduction and sexuality. While certain religious values guide the far right's political position against women's autonomy, since 2001 the use of bogus science is particularly striking and has implications for science and feminist education. Questionable scientific claims, such as abortion increasing the risk of breast cancer, are used to manipulate pubic opinion against women's reproductive justice. Such manipulation of "science" goes beyond the political use of "values" issues, such as when life begins. History of science can place the current effort to control women's lives (and to increase women's ill health and even deaths) side-by-side with the similar use of bad science to define non-whites and non-males as biologically inferior. Humanist education that emphasizes the strengths and the limits of science and the significance of feminist analyses of science and politics can help the public recognize the dangers for everyone of this recent move into the realm of bogus science.