Elisabeth Anne Lloyd (born September 3, 1956) is an American
philosopher of science
A philosopher is a person who practices or investigates philosophy. The term ''philosopher'' comes from the grc, φιλόσοφος, , translit=philosophos, meaning 'lover of wisdom'. The coining of the term has been attributed to the Greek th ...
specialising in the
philosophy of biology. She is currently
Distinguished Professor
Distinguished Professor is an academic title given to some top tenured professors in a university, school, or department. Some distinguished professors may have endowed chairs.
In the United States
Often specific to one institution, titles such ...
of History and Philosophy of Science and Medicine - as well as Adjunct Professor of biology - at
Indiana University, Bloomington
Indiana University Bloomington (IU Bloomington, Indiana University, IU, or simply Indiana) is a public research university in Bloomington, Indiana. It is the flagship campus of Indiana University and, with over 40,000 students, its largest campu ...
, affiliated faculty scholar at the
Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction
The Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction (often shortened to The Kinsey Institute) is a research institute at Indiana University. Established in Bloomington, Indiana, in 1947 as a nonprofit, the institute merged with Indi ...
and Adjunct Faculty at the Center for the Integrative Study of Animal Behavior.
Education and career
Lloyd was born in
Morristown, New Jersey
Morristown () is a town and the county seat of Morris County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey.[University of Colorado, Boulder
The University of Colorado Boulder (CU Boulder, CU, or Colorado) is a public research university in Boulder, Colorado. Founded in 1876, five months before Colorado became a state, it is the flagship university of the University of Colorado s ...]
in 1980, summa cum laude. Lloyd studied under
Bas van Fraassen
Bastiaan Cornelis van Fraassen (; born 1941) is a Dutch-American philosopher noted for his contributions to philosophy of science, epistemology and formal logic. He is a Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at San Francisco State University an ...
at
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ...
for a PhD in philosophy 19801984. While a student at Princeton, she spent a year (1983) studying with
Richard C. Lewontin at
Harvard's Museum of Comparative Zoology
A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make thes ...
.
She worked as an assistant professor in the Department of Philosophy at
University of California, San Diego
The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego or colloquially, UCSD) is a public land-grant research university in San Diego, California. Established in 1960 near the pre-existing Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego is ...
, 1985–88; and then was assistant professor, then associate professor, then full professor in the Department of Philosophy at the
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant un ...
from 1988 to 1999, before moving to
Indiana University
Indiana University (IU) is a system of public universities in the U.S. state of Indiana.
Campuses
Indiana University has two core campuses, five regional campuses, and two regional centers under the administration of IUPUI.
*Indiana Universi ...
.
In 2022, she was elected a Fellow of the
American Academy of Arts & Sciences
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...
.
Philosophical work
Her 2005 book, ''The Case of the Female Orgasm,'' was widely discussed in the scholarly and popular press, including ''
Isis
Isis (; ''Ēse''; ; Meroitic: ''Wos'' 'a''or ''Wusa''; Phoenician: 𐤀𐤎, romanized: ʾs) was a major goddess in ancient Egyptian religion whose worship spread throughout the Greco-Roman world. Isis was first mentioned in the Old Kin ...
'', ''
Nature
Nature, in the broadest sense, is the physical world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. Although humans are ...
'' and ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
.''
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 by
Donald Symons
Donald Symons (born 1942) is an American anthropologist best known as one of the founders of evolutionary psychology, and for pioneering the study of human sexuality from an evolutionary perspective. He is one of the most cited researchers in co ...
, 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 of ''
Saturday Night Live
''Saturday Night Live'' (often abbreviated to ''SNL'') is an American late-night live television sketch comedy and variety show created by Lorne Michaels and developed by Dick Ebersol that airs on NBC and Peacock. Michaels currently serves ...
'' because its title sounds like a racy version of a
Hardy Boys
The Hardy Boys, brothers Frank and Joe Hardy, are fictional characters who appear in several mystery series for children and teens. The series revolves around teenagers who are amateur sleuths, solving cases that stumped their adult counterp ...
novel. Lloyd had been working on the subject for two years, when a discussion with
Stephen Jay Gould
Stephen Jay Gould (; September 10, 1941 – May 20, 2002) was an American paleontologist, evolutionary biologist, and historian of science. He was one of the most influential and widely read authors of popular science of his generation. Goul ...
in 1986 led to her providing the basis for his 1987 essay in ''
Natural History'' titled 'Freudian Slip',
[Gould, S.J. (1987). Freudian Slip. ''Natural History 96'' (2): 14-21.] which was reprinted in 1992 as 'Male Nipples and Clitoral Ripples.'
[Gould, S.J. (1992). Male Nipples and Clitoral Ripples. In '']Bully for Brontosaurus
''Bully for Brontosaurus'' (1991) is the fifth volume of collected essays by the Harvard paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould. The essays were culled from his monthly column "This View of Life" in '' Natural History'' magazine, to which Gould contrib ...
: Further Reflections in Natural History''. London: Penguin Books. pp.124-138.
In 2001, ''
Michigan Law Review
The ''Michigan Law Review'' is an American law review and the flagship law journal of the University of Michigan Law School.
History
The ''Michigan Law Review'' was established in 1902, after Gustavus Ohlinger, a student in the Law Departmen ...
'' published her essay "Science Gone Astray: Evolution and Rape" that criticized
Randy Thornhill
Randy Thornhill (born 1944) is an American entomologist and evolutionary biologist. He is a professor of biology at the University of New Mexico, and was president of the Human Behavior and Evolution Society from 2011 to 2013. He is known for his ...
and Craig T. Palmer's famous work ''
A Natural History of Rape
''A Natural History of Rape: Biological Bases of Sexual Coercion'' is a 2000 book by the biologist Randy Thornhill and the anthropologist Craig T. Palmer, in which the authors argue that evolutionary psychology can account for rape among human be ...
'' for "glaring flaws in their science."
Bibliography
*''The Structure and Confirmation of Evolutionary Theory'', Greenwood Press, 1988 (Reprinted Princeton University Press, 1994 ).
*''Keywords in Evolutionary Biology'' (co-edited with
Evelyn Fox Keller
Evelyn Fox Keller (born March 20, 1936) is an American physicist, author and feminist. She is Professor Emerita of History and Philosophy of Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Keller's early work concentrated at the intersec ...
), Harvard University Press, 1992 (reprinted 1998 ).
*''The Case of the Female Orgasm: Bias in the Science of Evolution'', Harvard University Press, 2005 (new edition, 2006 ).
*''Science, Politics and Evolution'', Cambridge University Press, 2008 ().
*''Climate Modelling: Philosophical and Conceptual Issues'' (co-edited with
Eric Winsberg
Eric Winsberg (born February 4, 1968) is an American philosopher who is a professor of philosophy at the University of South Florida. From 2023 until 2027 he will hold a Global Professorship from the British Academy in the Department of History an ...
) Palgrave MacMillan, 2018
See also
*
American philosophy
American philosophy is the activity, corpus, and tradition of philosophers affiliated with the United States. The '' Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' notes that while it lacks a "core of defining features, American Philosophy can never ...
*
Evolutionary psychology
Evolutionary psychology is a theoretical approach in psychology that examines cognition and behavior from a modern evolutionary perspective. It seeks to identify human psychological adaptations with regards to the ancestral problems they evo ...
*
List of American philosophers
This is a list of American philosophers; of philosophers who are either from, or spent many productive years of their lives in the United States.
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Sexual selection in human evolution
Sexual selection in humans concerns the concept of sexual selection, introduced by Charles Darwin as an element of his theory of natural selection, as it affects humans. Sexual selection is a biological way one sex chooses a mate for the best repr ...
References
External links
Elisabeth Lloyd's homepage at Indiana University
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lloyd, Elisabeth Anne
1956 births
21st-century American women
American philosophers
American women philosophers
Harvard University alumni
Indiana University faculty
Living people
Philosophers of biology
Philosophers of science
Princeton University alumni
University of California, Berkeley College of Letters and Science faculty
University of Colorado alumni