Another Science War

TANAKA Sigeto <http://tsigeto.info>
(Graduate School of Arts and Letters, Tohoku University)

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This paper was awarded as an Outstanding Author Contribution by the publisher, Emerald Publishing (2018-07-03).

• Title: Another Science War: Fictitious Evidence on Women's Fertility and the “Egg Aging” Panic in 2010s Japan
• Author: TANAKA Sigeto
• Journal: Advances in Gender Research
• Publisher: Emerald Publishing
• Volume: 24
• Volume title: Gender Panic, Gender Policy
• Volume editor: Vasilikie Demos and Marcia Segal
• Pages: 67-92
• Date: 2017-10-30
• Language: ENG
• DOI: 10.1108/S1529-212620170000024006
• ISSN: 1529-2126
• ISBN: 978-1-78743-203-1
• NAID: 120006371080
• NCID: BB2487657X
• SocArXiv: http://osf.io/uz4gd/
• TOUR: http://hdl.handle.net/10097/00121982

URI: http://tsigeto.info/17d

OSF project: https://osf.io/5qshk/

ReMCat: {2017:15292126:24:67}

Abstract

Purpose: In the early 2010s, Japanese society recognized and experienced a panic about increasing infertility and people's lack of knowledge about human reproduction. This paper focuses on several graphs that misrepresented or distorted scientific findings that were used in the campaign related to this panic and explores (1) how the graphs were made, used, and authorized, and (2) how they contributed to changes in discourses and policies.

Methodology/approach: Literature survey.

Findings: (1) The graphs were made in the field of obstetrics, gynecology, and reproductive medicine by questionable methods, including falsifying, trimming, and misunderstanding of data. (2) Researchers in the field of fertility study relied on secondary and tertiary sources thus ignoring and compounding errors. (3) Such inauthentic research was approved and politically mobilized by professional organizations, rather than being penalized or criticized. (4) Discourse based on such unscientific knowledge may have encouraged a pronatalist policy of promoting early marriage and education about human fertility and life planning, targeted at teenage girls.

Research limitations/implications: Any society suffering from a low birthrate can experience similar phenomena. This study focuses on Japan, but it has wider implications about how low integrity and quality of the presentation of medical research can cause these issues elsewhere in the world.

Social implications: This paper includes a warning against biological explanations that contain unscientific connotations about gender.

Originality/value of paper: This paper confirms how gender-related policy in 2010s Japan was influenced by science that lacked research integrity and was of sub-standard quality.

Keywords

pseudoscience, reproductive medicine, pronatalist policy, fecundity, biology, education

Contents

• Aim and Scope
• History of Discourses about Women's Age and Fertility
  • Discourses about age and fertility in the mid-20th century
  • Fertility issues and gender-mainstreaming in the late 20th century
  • Backlash and introduction of biological explanation
  • The “egg aging” panic
  • Establishment of self-image as a society without sufficient knowledge about human fertility
  • The 2015 new pronatalist policy
• Graphical Representation to Arouse Public Attention
  • Undocumented Bayesian estimates of daily fecundability by Dunson et al. (2002)
  • Trimmed natural fertility curves by JSRM (2014)
  • Manipulated curve with a peak at age 22 by Yoshimura (2013)
• Authorization and Circulation of the Graphs
• Effects of the Manipulated Data
• Gender and Biology: Prospects for Political War with Science as a Social Institution

Figures

• Fig. 1: A faulty graph of the likelihood of getting pregnant linearly declining with age
• Fig. 2: Average age pattern of marital fertility rates from ten natural fertility populations
• Fig. 3: Daily fecundability estimates from a European multicenter study (1992-1996)
• Fig. 4: Age-specific marital fertility rates in some natural fertility populations
• Fig. 5: The manipulated graph with the peak at age 22

Acknowledgment

This study is based on my activities in an activist group (高校保健副教材の使用中止・回収を求める会: http://fukukyozai.jimdo.com). I extend my thanks to the members of the group for fruitful discussion, as well as to the editors of this volume for their helpful comments.

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