I can honestly say I've tried to understand feminist theory and I just don't understand it. But I'm all for a new programming language that expresses ideas in new ways (everyday I'm becoming more prototypal and less object orientated)
I'm still trying to figure out how 'feminist logic' can be different to just 'logic', logic is based on a priori axioms, so it's genderless, is it not? Unless there are a different set of axioms, but what makes one set of axioms more feminist (or feminine, perhaps?) than any other set? How is the set of current programming languages more masculine (or non feminist)? Doesn't this presuppose that females think about logic differently to men (which, from my experience, is really not something I think I would agree on... at least I'd need a pretty solid explanation for that).
I'm all for a new programming language, but I guess I just can't see how logic is related to something like feminism, or even femininity... maybe feminism is the wrong term here?
Let's be honest here, this is such a loaded concept, anything you say "feminist" could be could be construed as discrimination and stereotyping.
Programming is a set of logical rules laid out in syntax for processors or people (in the case of tabletop games) to follow. Saying that one set of conventions are more masculine or feminine than another is mindboggling...
Unless someone wants to cast the first stone into the pond and delineate what they think feminist programming would be (and then we can argue over *that*), I don't see the point of this pondering... *ponders*
Oh trust me I'm doing that. I'm having hell with Unity Physics. I've had 6 sets of ways of doing Bear Chuck. None of them has worked out so far. Trying some more. Maybe I'll take a break from that and jump back onto Rocketto. At least that has a more solved game mechanic than damn bears.
She seems to talks about normative versus feminist subject object theory, but I don't know enough about the difference to discuss it. That's why I'm interested because maybe I'll get some insight through looking at how the language is implemented.
My take of it was that programming languages forces you to program a certain way ("the norm") and perhaps that notion (forcing arbitrary norms) are somewhat anti-feminist. (I know nothing of anything, it's just a way I can somehow make it fit).
And I agree with @Fengol it is somewhat interesting. (I mean, we already have some very interesting languages with different paradigms around; those things are fascinating!).
And logic is not as straight-forward clear-cut as what you'd think. They _are_ based on axioms, but those things are formally arbitrary (as long as they are consistent). Different axioms give different mathematics. And although we choose axioms which seems intuitive and useful, it is not always so clear-cut either. Mathematics has this famous axiom called the axiom of choice. It is used quite a lot (and as far as I can tell, fairly well accepted now)... but one of its consequences is that you can cut a sphere in five pieces, move the five pieces rigidly in space, and have two spheres with each the same volume as the original... o.0
And mathematics is just as much a result of our biology and psychology (and thus, a result of our culture) as art. If you track history of mathematics, it follows the other arcs of history quite nicely (and with this I mean, follow the money) - trig to navigate the stars, geometry to measure land, statistics for gambling, etc. We count because we perceive the world as discrete globs (would nebulous beings without clear beginnings and ends invent the integers?)
Unfortunately, whatever she finds, we will never know, because she does not really care about adding knowledge to the world. The CS guy asks her very clear and direct questions; and she answers in language so convoluted I cannot say for sure whether she is joking or serious... oi :----/
Programming is a set of logical rules laid out in syntax for processors or people (in the case of tabletop games) to follow. Saying that one set of conventions are more masculine or feminine than another is mindboggling...
I believe it's extremely difficult for us to see where bias exists when we've grown up with it. Things that may seem utterly "logical", "natural" and "neutral" to us right now may, in a decade or two, be completely backward and silly. So while I'll also say that I don't know nearly enough about this stuff to know whether there's merit in the argument, I'm really interested to find out, and to be challenged. :)
I know this is probably not what she's talking about, but what if programming were framed in the same way as this engineering toy?
I think this type of logic represents the feminist idea that something can be and not be without being a contradiction, that is a system where the following statement is not explosive: (p && ¬p) == 1.
I'm very confused... It appears that feminism is not what I thought it was.
Should we be asking if Maths or English are feminist enough as well??? I feel the reason programming is the topic of the conversation as opposed to other languages is due to the high amount of males who do the field (probably for reasons other than whether the language is feminist or not)...
Maths is a way of communicating ideas just like programming, neither have a gender in my opinion...
The IDEA of programming being a male activity might be a more important problem, however my amazing female programming teachers would beg to differ...
Let's say we say feminist programming is more to do with colours. Then someone will say who says women are more about colours - argument ensues. Let's say we say feminist programming is more to do with emotions. Who says women are more emotional? Argument. Let's say we say feminist programming is more to do with simplicity. Are you saying women are stupid? Argument. Let's say we say feminist programming is more to do with complexity. Are you saying women can't simplify? Argument.
The point is trying to ascribe an activity to a gender only excludes someone in one way or another. Why even bother?
Should we be finding more democratic ways of programming? How about republican? How about a more religious way of doing maths?
I don't think that the term "feminist logic" is as gendered as some of you seem to assume it is. There are multiple conjectures about the relationships of entities and the concept of agency in post-structuralist thinking, which seems to be primarily what feminist logic deals with. There are certainly examples of where that might be useful, and there's a great comment in the original link that starts to explore what those relationship-centric methods of thinking might mean for programming in general.
Interestingly, the commenter mentions Inform7, a relational narrative language. One particular area of programming that currently benefits from a more nebulous definition of current state and a huge focus on relationships between elements is quantum processing. Whole new areas of math are being explored thanks to the way the fundamental elements of quantum processing (qubits) can be in states of superposition, only collapsing down to the "normal" 1s and 0s of comfortable binary logic under certain circumstances.
Imagine a programming language in which it's possible to perform multiple operations, one after the other, and only have the eventual answer collapse out once some initial state variable that had to be known to allow the computation to complete was set. That sounds like programming that feminist theory could be really useful in coming to grips with.
I don't claim to be an expert on feminism, nor feminist theory, nor post-structuralism, but it's certainly a valuable thought exercise to consider. Read that comment I linked to :)
As for more democratic ways of programming - democratic processes execute the will of a collective, so programming based on desires of individual sub-groups of data. How those would be measured, I'm not sure. But it could be fun to extrapolate possibilities, maybe?
Republican programming? Wouldn't that involve moving the burden of processing away from a central core and allowing more authority to distributed objects embedded in their own data with their own CPUs? That kinda feels like massively networked concurrent systems, actually - sort of how cloud-based OSes work in terms of maintaining data parity and the like. That's interesting... I've read articles that say that technological advancement isn't always a triumph of democracy and social advancement, which could well be true if the core methods of thinking necessary to make distributed computation work in networked environments requires inherently libertarian and distrusting/pessimistic structures. Just look at how bitcoin works, that's as libertarian as it gets!
Oh, as for more religious ways of doing maths... Well, that's kinda how lots of really cool and interesting mathematics was initially discovered.
I'd argue that exploring mathematical what-ifs, simply doodling interesting structures or jotting down patterns in relationships between numbers when arranged arbitrarily, carries a certain element of the numinous. You have to feel a little echo of Spinoza's god, of Einstein's imagination of the universe as you mess with those strings of numbers. I mean, just watch anything by Vi Hart and you'll understand...
There's a world of difference between that "religious" (or maybe that's curious/exploratory/wonderful/enraptured?) focus on math and the horrible dryness with which it's taught in classrooms.
(Or you could argue the reverse and say that the current method of teaching math is the religious model: Memetically crippling, spreads virally and forcibly largely irrelevant to huge swaths of daily life; While the numinous exploration of math for the sake of wonder is akin to playing an instrument or running through a field)
Big whoop. People have been trying to push their politically loaded labels and agendas on the intellectual world since the first ape could scrawl on a rock. Most of it is meaningless without some substantiation, and not even worth the debate. I'm fully behind progress in a positive vector, but geez, let's see something tangible before we come to any conclusions guys.
@dislekcia: you're joking, right? Religion has never had any positive influence on any scientific field. In fact, it has been the opposite. Maybe you meant passion and obsession with understanding the unknown. There I'm in full agreement.
Here goes, a bit poitn form as I am gloriously away from the interwebs and in my phone (sorry)
Language, all language, is ideologically loaded. It comes pre-packaged with beliefs and structures imbedded in it, that cannot be separated. We learn to think through language, intelligence is measured through access to language, our psychological concept of self is rooted in language. (Lacan et al) (references can be dug up on request, but not till I'm on a PC) Since language itself is ideologically loaded, and concurrently creates ideology, many have looked at the subaltern as stemming from and reflecting in language. (Kristeva, Fanon)
Our very sense of 'I' depends on a linguistic construct of 'self and other'.
The construction and use of language is therefore a key concern, and always has been. How it impact the expression and understanding of the subaltern has been investigated for the past century.
Right, so there is precedent. Next...
Programming languages are languages. Maths is also, (re Doms comment above) a language. Nothing more. They are all semiotic systems of expression that function linguistically. Like all language they are encoded and formalized and therefore embedded in an ideological system. And like all language they therefore have to be interrogated. There is a lot of work being done on this. (I think Nick Montfort is heavily involved - but I need to look it up). There is also, interestingly a lot being done on the poetic expressions of both code and math. I will (when confronted by PC) post a link to a fascinating study of a single line of code in the tradition of literary studies, with contributors all examining the same piece from different theoretical entrance points.
But now, here is the thing about languages: This is not about what they say, but about their core function and structure.
This is where her example of subject object relations is possibly a bit of a cop out and deceptive in its simplicity. The normative subject object relationship is the foundation of human development. This is me, that is not-me. (Freud, Lacan). Societally, the speaking subject (the eternal me) is positioned as the straight white male. (Here you can look at Fanon's "Black face white mask" and Laura Mulvey to see how this impacts the 'other' as speaking subject within a western paradigm). Therefore to look at how these linguistic psychological and sociological constructs impact the creation of meaning within a measurably created linguistic system is fascinating.
As for her thesis: I am not sure about the project of 'creating' a language from within an ideological standpoint. I would need to look a lot more closely at her research.
Essentially, the core point is valid and fascinating but I am not sure that this is the appropriate research framework.
I'll do some digging. Someone else must be working on this.
While all those theories sound quite interesting, they feel to me like methods of programming, with the possibilities of changing into tools of programming. It would be interesting if they were brought up when the original topic was discussed, but all I saw of the opening volley was, as @farsicon said, politically loaded term being bandied about trying to get attention (no different from including Bieber in your game trailer) without actual substance.
The creative exercise is worth 10 000 000x more than the label. Of course one could argue the creative could never come about without the label, that I can't argue. In which case I'll share more cool labels to be creative with:
A more Star Wars way to programming A more Ornithopter-like way to coding A language that is less Herbaceous A programming framework that's more plastic
@Hanli , @Dislekcia , Thanks for the clarification :) I think I have a better idea what this about now >.< I'm still completely confused as I have always seen language as gender neutral however I can see how the ideological implications can prove that untrue.
On that note wouldn't our time be better spent trying to make english more feminist as it is a language which was created before feminist theory existed?? I say this only because I feel some programming languages were developed only recently a time where feministic theory exists and is known and that being said such theory could already have had an ideological impact on more recently written languages (I think we could find something if we looked close enough) :P
It would be interesting if they were brought up when the original topic was discussed, but all I saw of the opening volley was, as @farsicon said, politically loaded term being bandied about trying to get attention (no different from including Bieber in your game trailer) without actual substance.
I don't know about the "without actual substance" thing. Read the comment I linked to and the comment it's in reply to from the author (and the questioning comment before that too, yay backwards). Those are pretty substantive and interesting discussions, which were there when the article was originally linked.
As for the whole "term bandied about to try and get attention" thing. Ugh. No. Very, very no... That is so close to a tired old stereotype and could be really damaging to useful perception if not actively prodded with a stick until it deflates. I mean, who was doing the looking for attention? The initial poster of the topic? The person that showed the topic online on social media? The author who wrote about her thesis topic and then answered in depth questions with answers that clearly demonstrate WHY her thesis is about this stuff? What is the bad part of looking for attention in the first place? Is it the direction the attention is supposedly going? Is it the gendered perception of a term that's being used in context? Is discussing this stuff hurtful in any way?
Although more thought exercises could be fun - bit zoned out now tho :)
Big whoop. People have been trying to push their politically loaded labels and agendas on the intellectual world since the first ape could scrawl on a rock. Most of it is meaningless without some substantiation, and not even worth the debate. I'm fully behind progress in a positive vector, but geez, let's see something tangible before we come to any conclusions guys.
Seriously, please read the comments I linked to above. There's some incredibly interesting stuff there, like:
Regarding the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, I have heard of it, but I think Deutscher in Through the Language Glass presents a more accurate alternative hypothesis: languages do not prevent us from expressing a particular thought, or thinking about a certain concept (alternately, it is possible to express all thoughts in all languages, even if you have to make up a vocabulary word to do so), but they do influence our perception by influencing what we must habitually consider in order to construct correct phrases. He gives numerous examples of this idea, including languages where all directions are absolute compass directions (therefore requiring one to have a sense of their absolute position at all times) and languages where one's knowledge of an action (whether they witnessed it, whether they inferred it, whether they heard about it from someone else) is conjugated with the verb, and using the incorrect suffix is considered lying.
I really really like this! I'm not a fan of Lacan's conjectures about language proscribing thought, but I can see how it might frame familiarity (stuff like the way children inherently turn pidgin languages into structurally complex creoles point to language structures being inherent in how we manipulate symbols in our minds independent of language - I'm not a linguist though and not a follower of the rest of Pinker and Chomsky) but much of the issue isn't so much language as the cultural context that a language is used in. As such, it's completely valid to ask "Hey, are we missing any neat ways to solve problems because we're making certain unchallenged assumptions?" extending that thought process to programming sounds useful to me... Also, I love the idea of a language that conjugates verbs with information sources, thus making lying inherently a matter of grammar. That's so badass!
@dislekcia: you're joking, right? Religion has never had any positive influence on any scientific field. In fact, it has been the opposite. Maybe you meant passion and obsession with understanding the unknown. There I'm in full agreement.
Um. I can point to a few situations off the top of my head where religion did have a positive influence on science pretty easily: Gregor Mendel's pea plants being foundations for genetics; Monasteries painstakingly copying manuscripts and preserving information in their libraries that would have otherwise been lost to raids and sacks; Islamic scholars were often supported by the Caliphate and we probably wouldn't have the mathematical tools they built on Grecian logic today if not for their religious "universities"; Biology and Geography in particular have been huge benefactors of religious institutions - centuries ago vicars and priests were often encouraged to indulge their curiosity, spending their time doing research on natural science topics of the age...
Granted, many of these examples are only possible due to the horrid injustices that religious organisations perpetuated in terms of hoarding resources, but in the absence of solid governments and research funding/grantor organisations, there wasn't anything better for hundreds of years. Yes, often experiments were terrible or designed to try and prove the existence of whichever bronze age god they were supposed to be propping up, but advances were still made.
I'm not an apologist, saying that all religions are great for science, that would be patently stupid. Religion these days often has very negative impacts on scientific advancement and understanding (Fuck you, Kent Hovind), but that wasn't always the case. I very carefully mentioned Spinoza's god for a reason :)
To drag this kicking and screaming back to the topic: Could it be ironically appreciated that thinking about religion in a feminist manner as both good AND bad for science could lead to better understanding? I think so ;)
Factual fail. Apologetic. Nuff said. I am disappoint. Bowing out now...
No worries, I wasn't trying to dump on you BTW. Kudos for not going flame mode - you were right, I was saying that passion and obsession with understanding the unknown is awesome :)
Comments
I'm all for a new programming language, but I guess I just can't see how logic is related to something like feminism, or even femininity... maybe feminism is the wrong term here?
Generally just befuddled by the whole idea... >.<
Programming is a set of logical rules laid out in syntax for processors or people (in the case of tabletop games) to follow. Saying that one set of conventions are more masculine or feminine than another is mindboggling...
Unless someone wants to cast the first stone into the pond and delineate what they think feminist programming would be (and then we can argue over *that*), I don't see the point of this pondering... *ponders*
Though there are many better things to put mental energy into. Like making games ;)
And I agree with @Fengol it is somewhat interesting. (I mean, we already have some very interesting languages with different paradigms around; those things are fascinating!).
And logic is not as straight-forward clear-cut as what you'd think. They _are_ based on axioms, but those things are formally arbitrary (as long as they are consistent). Different axioms give different mathematics. And although we choose axioms which seems intuitive and useful, it is not always so clear-cut either. Mathematics has this famous axiom called the axiom of choice. It is used quite a lot (and as far as I can tell, fairly well accepted now)... but one of its consequences is that you can cut a sphere in five pieces, move the five pieces rigidly in space, and have two spheres with each the same volume as the original... o.0
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banach–Tarski_paradox
And mathematics is just as much a result of our biology and psychology (and thus, a result of our culture) as art. If you track history of mathematics, it follows the other arcs of history quite nicely (and with this I mean, follow the money) - trig to navigate the stars, geometry to measure land, statistics for gambling, etc. We count because we perceive the world as discrete globs (would nebulous beings without clear beginnings and ends invent the integers?)
Unfortunately, whatever she finds, we will never know, because she does not really care about adding knowledge to the world. The CS guy asks her very clear and direct questions; and she answers in language so convoluted I cannot say for sure whether she is joking or serious... oi :----/
I know this is probably not what she's talking about, but what if programming were framed in the same way as this engineering toy?
Should we be asking if Maths or English are feminist enough as well??? I feel the reason programming is the topic of the conversation as opposed to other languages is due to the high amount of males who do the field (probably for reasons other than whether the language is feminist or not)...
Maths is a way of communicating ideas just like programming, neither have a gender in my opinion...
The IDEA of programming being a male activity might be a more important problem, however my amazing female programming teachers would beg to differ...
Let's say we say feminist programming is more to do with colours. Then someone will say who says women are more about colours - argument ensues.
Let's say we say feminist programming is more to do with emotions. Who says women are more emotional? Argument.
Let's say we say feminist programming is more to do with simplicity. Are you saying women are stupid? Argument.
Let's say we say feminist programming is more to do with complexity. Are you saying women can't simplify? Argument.
The point is trying to ascribe an activity to a gender only excludes someone in one way or another. Why even bother?
Should we be finding more democratic ways of programming?
How about republican?
How about a more religious way of doing maths?
What???
Interestingly, the commenter mentions Inform7, a relational narrative language. One particular area of programming that currently benefits from a more nebulous definition of current state and a huge focus on relationships between elements is quantum processing. Whole new areas of math are being explored thanks to the way the fundamental elements of quantum processing (qubits) can be in states of superposition, only collapsing down to the "normal" 1s and 0s of comfortable binary logic under certain circumstances.
Imagine a programming language in which it's possible to perform multiple operations, one after the other, and only have the eventual answer collapse out once some initial state variable that had to be known to allow the computation to complete was set. That sounds like programming that feminist theory could be really useful in coming to grips with.
I don't claim to be an expert on feminism, nor feminist theory, nor post-structuralism, but it's certainly a valuable thought exercise to consider. Read that comment I linked to :)
As for more democratic ways of programming - democratic processes execute the will of a collective, so programming based on desires of individual sub-groups of data. How those would be measured, I'm not sure. But it could be fun to extrapolate possibilities, maybe?
Republican programming? Wouldn't that involve moving the burden of processing away from a central core and allowing more authority to distributed objects embedded in their own data with their own CPUs? That kinda feels like massively networked concurrent systems, actually - sort of how cloud-based OSes work in terms of maintaining data parity and the like. That's interesting... I've read articles that say that technological advancement isn't always a triumph of democracy and social advancement, which could well be true if the core methods of thinking necessary to make distributed computation work in networked environments requires inherently libertarian and distrusting/pessimistic structures. Just look at how bitcoin works, that's as libertarian as it gets!
I'd argue that exploring mathematical what-ifs, simply doodling interesting structures or jotting down patterns in relationships between numbers when arranged arbitrarily, carries a certain element of the numinous. You have to feel a little echo of Spinoza's god, of Einstein's imagination of the universe as you mess with those strings of numbers. I mean, just watch anything by Vi Hart and you'll understand...
There's a world of difference between that "religious" (or maybe that's curious/exploratory/wonderful/enraptured?) focus on math and the horrible dryness with which it's taught in classrooms.
(Or you could argue the reverse and say that the current method of teaching math is the religious model: Memetically crippling, spreads virally and forcibly largely irrelevant to huge swaths of daily life; While the numinous exploration of math for the sake of wonder is akin to playing an instrument or running through a field)
@dislekcia: you're joking, right? Religion has never had any positive influence on any scientific field. In fact, it has been the opposite. Maybe you meant passion and obsession with understanding the unknown. There I'm in full agreement.
Here goes, a bit poitn form as I am gloriously away from the interwebs and in my phone (sorry)
Language, all language, is ideologically loaded. It comes pre-packaged with beliefs and structures imbedded in it, that cannot be separated. We learn to think through language, intelligence is measured through access to language, our psychological concept of self is rooted in language. (Lacan et al) (references can be dug up on request, but not till I'm on a PC)
Since language itself is ideologically loaded, and concurrently creates ideology, many have looked at the subaltern as stemming from and reflecting in language. (Kristeva, Fanon)
Our very sense of 'I' depends on a linguistic construct of 'self and other'.
The construction and use of language is therefore a key concern, and always has been. How it impact the expression and understanding of the subaltern has been investigated for the past century.
Right, so there is precedent. Next...
Programming languages are languages. Maths is also, (re Doms comment above) a language. Nothing more. They are all semiotic systems of expression that function linguistically. Like all language they are encoded and formalized and therefore embedded in an ideological system. And like all language they therefore have to be interrogated. There is a lot of work being done on this. (I think Nick Montfort is heavily involved - but I need to look it up). There is also, interestingly a lot being done on the poetic expressions of both code and math. I will (when confronted by PC) post a link to a fascinating study of a single line of code in the tradition of literary studies, with contributors all examining the same piece from different theoretical entrance points.
But now, here is the thing about languages: This is not about what they say, but about their core function and structure.
This is where her example of subject object relations is possibly a bit of a cop out and deceptive in its simplicity. The normative subject object relationship is the foundation of human development. This is me, that is not-me. (Freud, Lacan). Societally, the speaking subject (the eternal me) is positioned as the straight white male. (Here you can look at Fanon's "Black face white mask" and Laura Mulvey to see how this impacts the 'other' as speaking subject within a western paradigm). Therefore to look at how these linguistic psychological and sociological constructs impact the creation of meaning within a measurably created linguistic system is fascinating.
As for her thesis:
I am not sure about the project of 'creating' a language from within an ideological standpoint. I would need to look a lot more closely at her research.
Essentially, the core point is valid and fascinating but I am not sure that this is the appropriate research framework.
I'll do some digging. Someone else must be working on this.
And that's me out.
The creative exercise is worth 10 000 000x more than the label. Of course one could argue the creative could never come about without the label, that I can't argue. In which case I'll share more cool labels to be creative with:
A more Star Wars way to programming
A more Ornithopter-like way to coding
A language that is less Herbaceous
A programming framework that's more plastic
Go :)
On that note wouldn't our time be better spent trying to make english more feminist as it is a language which was created before feminist theory existed?? I say this only because I feel some programming languages were developed only recently a time where feministic theory exists and is known and that being said such theory could already have had an ideological impact on more recently written languages (I think we could find something if we looked close enough) :P
Very interesting food for thought though :D
As for the whole "term bandied about to try and get attention" thing. Ugh. No. Very, very no... That is so close to a tired old stereotype and could be really damaging to useful perception if not actively prodded with a stick until it deflates. I mean, who was doing the looking for attention? The initial poster of the topic? The person that showed the topic online on social media? The author who wrote about her thesis topic and then answered in depth questions with answers that clearly demonstrate WHY her thesis is about this stuff? What is the bad part of looking for attention in the first place? Is it the direction the attention is supposedly going? Is it the gendered perception of a term that's being used in context? Is discussing this stuff hurtful in any way?
Although more thought exercises could be fun - bit zoned out now tho :) Seriously, please read the comments I linked to above. There's some incredibly interesting stuff there, like: I really really like this! I'm not a fan of Lacan's conjectures about language proscribing thought, but I can see how it might frame familiarity (stuff like the way children inherently turn pidgin languages into structurally complex creoles point to language structures being inherent in how we manipulate symbols in our minds independent of language - I'm not a linguist though and not a follower of the rest of Pinker and Chomsky) but much of the issue isn't so much language as the cultural context that a language is used in. As such, it's completely valid to ask "Hey, are we missing any neat ways to solve problems because we're making certain unchallenged assumptions?" extending that thought process to programming sounds useful to me... Also, I love the idea of a language that conjugates verbs with information sources, thus making lying inherently a matter of grammar. That's so badass! Um. I can point to a few situations off the top of my head where religion did have a positive influence on science pretty easily: Gregor Mendel's pea plants being foundations for genetics; Monasteries painstakingly copying manuscripts and preserving information in their libraries that would have otherwise been lost to raids and sacks; Islamic scholars were often supported by the Caliphate and we probably wouldn't have the mathematical tools they built on Grecian logic today if not for their religious "universities"; Biology and Geography in particular have been huge benefactors of religious institutions - centuries ago vicars and priests were often encouraged to indulge their curiosity, spending their time doing research on natural science topics of the age...
Granted, many of these examples are only possible due to the horrid injustices that religious organisations perpetuated in terms of hoarding resources, but in the absence of solid governments and research funding/grantor organisations, there wasn't anything better for hundreds of years. Yes, often experiments were terrible or designed to try and prove the existence of whichever bronze age god they were supposed to be propping up, but advances were still made.
I'm not an apologist, saying that all religions are great for science, that would be patently stupid. Religion these days often has very negative impacts on scientific advancement and understanding (Fuck you, Kent Hovind), but that wasn't always the case. I very carefully mentioned Spinoza's god for a reason :)
To drag this kicking and screaming back to the topic: Could it be ironically appreciated that thinking about religion in a feminist manner as both good AND bad for science could lead to better understanding? I think so ;)