One of the feminist critiques of traditional theories of science has as its target the Baconian paradigm of an active (read: male) scientist manipulating, describing, and laying bare the secrets of inert and pliable (read: female) nature. The critique holds that this model of scientific discovery leads to bad philosophy, bad politics, and, it is increasingly clear, bad science.

It leads to bad philosophy because it results in an alienated view of nature as essentially dead and meaningless, a view which, minimally, fails to capture our experience of the dynamism and interconnectedness evident in nature. It is bad politics because it does not recognize intrinsic values in nature; it encourages us (them) to view nature merely as a resource to exploit. And it is bad science because in refusing to acknowledge agency in nature, it fails to recognize many of the creative capacities of natural systems.