Critically evaluate the arguments in the following passages. Identify the crucial flaw(s), if any

Passage 1

Even a cursory glance of the history of mathematics reveals a huge asymmetry between men and women in the field. When compared to men, the number of women who have had an impact on the development of ideas in mathematics is negligible. Hence, we must conclude that when compared to men, women have a low aptitude for mathematics. To avoid wasting our limited resources, therefore, it would be wise to give priority to male applicants in our selection for majors in mathematics, computer science, physics, and engineering.

Passage 2

At the core of inquiry in the physical sciences is the search for laws: Galileo’s laws, Kepler’s laws, Newton’s laws, Ohm’s law, Boyle’s law, Maxwell’s laws, and so on. Now, the purpose of instituting laws is to prevent the occurrence of what law makers regard as undesirable. We have traffic laws to prevent actions that lead to accidents, laws against murder to prevent humans killing one another, property laws to protect property, and so on. It is arrogant and foolish of scientists to pretend that they can control Nature by prescribing laws. No matter what scientists tell Mother Nature to do or not to do, she will do as she pleases. We must conclude therefore that the search for laws in scientific inquiry does not serve its purpose.

Passage 3

Central to the experimental method in science is the doctrine of control: scientific experiments are expected to control for the independent variables that affect the dependent variable. Research students in psychology learn about control groups, while those in medicine learn about the design of controlled double blind experiments. Is it surprising that this methodology has led to the control and domination of the less powerful and less privileged? The methodology of control legitimizes the domination of men over women, of whites over non-whites, and of the West over the rest of the world. We can fight against systematic subjugation and marginalization only by recognizing and exposing what lies at its roots: the doctrine of control. As academics who have a responsibility to say no to all forms of tyranny and oppression, we must refuse to extol the virtues of controlled experiments in the classrooms, and expose the political agenda of control that hides behind the patriarchal mask of objectivity and rationality.

Passage 4

Philosopher Sandra Harding, quoting Francis Bacon, charges early science enthusiasts with using rape and torture imagery: “For you have but to follow and as it were hound nature in her wanderings, and you will be able when you like to lead and drive her afterward to the same place again… Neither ought a man to make a scruple of entering and penetrating into those holes and corners when the inquisition of truth is the whole subject” (Harding The Science Question in Feminism, p. 237)

Harding argues:

“ …if we are to believe that mechanistic metaphors were a fundamental component of the explanations the new science provided, why should we believe the gender metaphors were not? A consistent analysis would lead to the conclusion that understanding nature as a woman indifferent to or even welcoming rape was equally fundamental to the interpretations of these new conceptions of nature and inquiry. Presumably these metaphors, too, had fruitful pragmatic, methodological, and metaphysical consequences for science. In that case, why is it not as illuminating and honest to refer to Newton’s laws as “Newton’s rape manual” as it is to call them “Newton’s mechanics”? (p.113)

“Both nature and inquiry appear conceptualized in ways modeled on rape and torture – on men’s most violent and misogynous relationships to women – and this modeling is advanced as a reason to value science… As nature came to seem more like a machine, did not machine come to seem more natural? As nature came to seem more like a woman whom it is appropriate to rape and torture than like a nurturing mother, did rape and torture not seem a more natural relation of men to women?” (p. 116)