Replace the “diversity” tag above, with your favorite tag, be it Black, Green, Gay, Feminist or whatever. For much of science the problems are clear. What is “gay” number theory, or “feminist” crystallography besides nonsense.
A friend pointed me at this essay on First Things entitled, The Myth of Scientific Objectivity. There is much to unpack there, but I’d thought I’d offer a few thoughts. My notions of philosophy of science and how science works to put my cards on the table are much influenced by Michael Polanyi especially this book, Personal Knowledge. I think some of the insights from that book would do to criticize and quiet the problems that arise such as Mr Wilson’s example, a ‘feminist’ sociologist examining the “good” features of divorce, which requires ignoring much of the obvious. Mr Polanyi points out that much of science is, contrary to popular notions, a process which we can’t explain but have to learn for ourselves. One of the features of this explanation of how science works it that there is an essential step which Mr Wilson doesn’t mention.
Mr Wilson points out that the scientific process is not the abstract inductive or deductive process, but one of a collection of personal insights for which the advocate of that insight then gathers data to support and convinces other that he/she is correct. I think the part missing here is that the person who has this insight has become, through years of work, skilled at the ways of thinking and methods in solving problems in the particular field of research that their insight is not uninformed but instead based on a collection of personal history and knowledge in that same field. The aesthetics of what comprises good science in any particular field is taught and learned and makes an essential feature to the progress of science.
Diversity in and of itself has impact on fields of science, as you would expect, only as much as the social aspects of human life are the within the scope of inquiry in that branch of science. If you are studying how flagella propel microorganisms in fluids, then your notions of gender and race exactly irrelevant. But within sociology, psychology, and such arguably have contributions that might be possible from other social points of view. But those insights gleaned from those fields likely are as impermanent as the social conditions in which they are implanted. One the other hand, inquiry into the nature of elliptic curves over the rational numbers … not so much. The insights gleaned will not fade as social conditions change nor will the truths discovered be dependent on any features and facets of human society.
I might note, that there is a good counter argument to Mr Polanyi’s ineffable nature of scientific knowledge, in that computer science and programming may be an answer to what is and what is not ineffable. See for example, this text. If you can teach a computer to do the thing you are trying to explain how to do, then you understand it at a level which is no longer ineffable. Your program is the explanation.