Zur Sozialgeschichte der Elliptische-Kurven-Kryptographie.

Wir scienceblogs-Autoren machen uns ja häufig lustig über Geisteswissenschaftler, die mit ihrer Meinung zu naturwissenschaftlichen Themen nicht hinterm Berg halten können (wie zuletzt die Frauenforscherin von Werlhof).
Um hier als Kontrapunkt mal ein positives Beispiel zu bringen, wie Gender Studies sich kompetent mit einem natur- (bzw. technik-)wissenschaftlichen Thema auseinandersetzen: die Arbeit Elliptic Curve Cryptography: The Serpentine Course of a Paradigm Shift (verfasst von Hibler Koblitz, Prof. of Women and Gender Studies an der ASU, gemeinsam mit den beiden Mathematikern Koblitz und Menezez).

Es geht (auf den letzten 6 Seiten) um die sozialen Hintergründe der Geschichte der ECC.

Grundsätzlicher Nutzen

Bevor es zum eigentlichen Thema (Anwendung der Gender Studies auf die Elliptische-Kurven-Kryptographie) kommt, wird zunächst an Beispielen erläutert, daß Gender Studies durchaus schon einige Male Fehlkonzeptionen in wissenschaftlicher Forschung aufgedeckt haben.

Als Beispiele werden genannt
– die Primatenforschung von Blaffer Hrdy

The field of primatology emerged toward the end of the 19th century in the wake of Darwin’s pathbreaking work on natural selection and evolution, which was popularly known as the theory that “man descended from apes.” For close to a century most primatologists visualized ape family life as conforming to Victorian views of gender roles. A now-classic example of this tendency could be seen in the primate hall of the American Museum of Natural History, which featured a majestic male silverback gorilla towering over and guarding his much smaller mate and their offspring. This memorable tableau directly replicated the stereotypical Victorian nuclear family in the primate world. Unstated anywhere in the exhibit was the fact that several large female gorillas had been shot in the mistaken belief that they were males worthy of being stuffed for the Museum. Unstated also was the fact that such a scene of a nuclear ape family would have been highly unlikely in nature.

– und die Forschung zur Hohokam-Kultur

A group of archaeologists led by Steven LeBlanc of Harvard and David Wilcox of the Museum of Northern Arizona have developed an elaborate theory of endemic warfare among the ancient Hohokam peoples of central Arizona. Wilcox and his coauthors describe how, while talking late at night around a campfire, they arrived at their “exciting” conclusions, which seem to be the result of lively imagination stimulated by male-to-male comradery rather than any scholarly deductions. They recount with awe and describe as “scientific” the “seminal ideas” supplied by a much-decorated veteran of the Vietnam War who visited the sites with Wilcox. Although there is scant evidence for any warfare among
the Hohokam, let alone battles of epic proportions, this group of archaeologists has insisted on a version of prehistory that appears to have more to do with a modern American culture of aggressive masculinity than with the actual interactions among peoples in 14th-century Arizona.

Konkret zur ECC

Nachdem mit diesen Beispielen der grundsätzliche Nutzen von Gender Studies begründet worden ist, kommt es (nach einer längeren Diskussion über ‘Soziale Konstruktion von Technologie’) schließlich zum eigentlichen Thema (Elliptische Kurven Kryptographie).
Einzelheiten kann man im Artikel nachlesen, der Abschnitt endet letztlich mit der Konklusion:

In our opinion such attempts at explanation based on gender or national character are far-fetched and untenable.
The social influences on the course of public key cryptography appear to have
come not from such broad categories as gender, race, class, or nationality, but rather
from certain aspects of the professional culture. This is not unusual in the history
of technology. As MacKenzie and Wajcman put it,
…’social shaping’ does not necessarily involve reference to wider societal relations such as those of class, gender and ethnicity. These are sometimes directly crucial… but often what is more immediately relevant are ‘local’ considerations, such as engineers’ membership of professional communities, the reward structures of those
communities, and so on.

In die Wissenschaftsseiten der Tagespresse werden es die Autoren mit solchen unspektakulären Ergebnissen sicher nicht schaffen.

(Den Rest des Artikels hatte ich hier besprochen.)