Changing the Classroom

Using The Feminist Critique of Science

A feminist walks into the principal’s office at her local elementary school, and slaps down on the desk a thick packet.

Women Say “Nay!” to Independence

by R. Malfi 

    What would you say if I told you that according to a 2001 article entitled “Academia – Graduate School and Beyond,” women earned 46% of Ph.D.s in biology and agricultural science, 23% in math, 22% in the physical sciences, 16% in computer science and 12% in engineering[1].  How would you account for fact that as the scientific discipline gets “harder,” the fewer women there are to be seen?  I can tell you what others have said.  Explanations for the notable absence of women from the sciences range from inherent differences in men and women that translate into differences in both capability and interest in science to accessibility issues, including the institutional structure, competitive working atmospheres, and the lack of amenities such as childcare. While these are all avenues worth exploration, the feminist critique of science raises another, more provocative issue. Perhaps the problem does not lie in access or ability to do the sciences, but in the science itself.  In this paper, I discuss why one of the major reasons women are absent from the “harder” sciences like physics and math may relate to gender differences and the nature of present scientific practice. 

                Looking at the evolution of thought and thought processes among many different cultures can shed light into a better understanding of our evolving world today and, albeit, our interpretation of the world, for over time, the two work hand-in-hand.  Our thought gives us explanations of how our world came into existence, and as life evolves and the story becomes more expansive, our world evokes the evolution of more thoughts on aspects of our culture, health, society and future. Thus, biological evolution creates a framework for understanding the evolution of many other things, such as the human thought process, as they continue to influence one another over time.  However, because human culture and society can also affect our thought processes, this complicates our understanding of the interplay between the many factors which can affect our overall biological evolution.
               Among humans, the evolution of thought is the long and slow transition from the earliest beliefs in myths and magic, to the implementation of science and reason, and continues to rapidly evolve today.  In the earliest of times, humanity’s knowledge of the universe was very limited.  Natural phenomena such as changes in climate and weather were poorly understood, travel was more tedious and difficult, communication between individuals in far off lands was rare, and there was an overall simplicity to life and lack of understanding of many of life’s processes.  When catastrophes struck the world or countries, such as Bubonic plague, the only thing that people understood could help them was prayer and religion.  In essence, these ideologies and poor medical knowledge caused the death of billions of people, affecting the course of biological evolution.
                   However, after the advent of movable type and the expanding Western Civilization, books became readily available to many, the opportunity to learn and be educated was more common, and humans became more interested in studying the physical world.  The blooming science and technology spurred the Industrial Revolution, creating a middle class, more education, many books, and a way for people to begin thinking freely and independently.  Increasing communication meant sharing medical information and publishing and reading medical texts, and increasing means of transportation meant more access to healthcare and faster assistance and treatment when needed.  Furthermore, technology advanced the tools necessary for medicinal practices, and a larger emphasis was made on cleanliness and hygiene.  These factors combined helped improve patient healthcare and prolong life, which in turn, affected biological evolution of human beings.
                  As civilizations further evolved in different countries and among different cultures, education, learning, and thinking were able to take on their own course.  Although there was expanding communication between human beings in different locations, different ideologies and philosophies of life still grew and expanded.  In a world filled with opportunities for many, especially with an increased acceptance of the freedom to choose, intellectual growth and stimulation developed in different subjects and among different people.  As Richard Nisbett, author of The Geography of Thought, puts it, “Leisure meant for the Greeks, among other things, the freedom to pursue knowledge.”  Thus, cultures varied in their intellectual pursuits, which to some degree, affected their respective biological evolution.  For example, in some countries, where modern conveniences were readily available, such as easier transportation, better health, access to healthcare, public education, prepared and packaged food, child day care and a modern civilized society, the time demands and ideologies used in the past life were replaced with newer thoughts and ideas and more time could be placed on pursuing science and medicine.  Consequently, more diseases are being cured, people are living longer, vaccines are created, women can choose to abort fetuses or use birth control, and overall, human beings are essentially affecting their own biological evolution through their advanced beliefs and emphasis on health and medicine.  In other countries, which have more ancient beliefs about healthcare and a different ideology and emphasis on education, older and outdated practices can be performed.  For example, the process of childbirth can render more fatalities and birth problems, whereas a similar birthing practice could be carried out successfully in other areas of the world.  This, too, affects those individuals’ biological evolution.  Conversely, the high-fat diets and over-consumption of pre-packaged foods in the US has caused a rapid increase in health-related issues such as obesity, diabetes and heart disease.  Whereas, other countries with limited food supplies which are nutritious, healthy and fresh have individuals who are more lean, slender and healthy. 
                      Currently, in the US, medical practices and technology are bringing us into an era of prolonging life and overall, enhancing the quality of our lives in our elderly years.  Reproduction has been more easily controlled, more vaccines are becoming available and imaging technology has helped us target certain tumors and cancers for more effective treatment and accurate diagnoses.  Pace makers allow our hearts to keep beating, transplants allow us to utilize others’ organs for survival, genetic counseling and testing allows us to abort fetuses which may end up with low survival rates and complications, and so on.  Laparoscopic surgeries help us become more efficient and cause less remnants of surgical procedures having been performed, and many medical practitioners work towards beauty enhancement and perform elective surgeries.  To continue, stem cell research, the future of science and medicine, has been working towards rebuilding organs and organ systems from scratch, and is growing among many other medical advances in the arena.  And when disasters such as the Avian flu or SARS may occur in the near-future, we are more prepared to tackle the problems and fight the disease, so as to promote our lives, build up our tolerance and immunity, and prolong our biological evolution in years to come.  Even things like cleaner water, purer air and safer infrastructure has helped change the course of biological evolution.
                        Overall, it is our inquiry, our thoughts and beliefs, and our desires to explore the world, science, technology and other worldly phenomena that help us understand things in more depth.   In essence, our reason and scientific inquiry bring us the current technology that affects our world and life, and in turn, this drives us to rethink things, inquire, and learn more, which ultimately affects our biological evolution.  Thus, there is a profound interplay between our thought, culture and society which all affects our biological evolution.   Today, the notion of ancient beliefs, traditional medicines, and old teachings connotes a deeper understanding of life and the world, as our modern thinking portrays the current understanding of our progressive world.  In sum, experimentation, rethinking, and learning through experience and observation continually change our thoughts, which in turn change our respective biological evolution, helping us to get things less wrong and continue to ask more questions, which may affect our own biological evolution throughout time.        

Ruskai's article was a great read. She was clear, to the point, and captivating! By page two of her article she had already fleshed out what she saw to be some of the problems concerning the gender gap in the sciences. 

On page two, Ruskai talks about stereotypes that have created what seems like a stigma preventing females from studying physics. When you look at the statistics that she presents, it makes me think about what is perpetuating these stereotypes. She talks about how most women choose not to study physics before they are even introduced to the topic. Stereotypes seem to be only a fraction of the problem, Ruskai makes it seem like something is actually scarring these women away from pursuing a science line of study! 

At the end of the article, "How Stereotypes about Science Affect the Participation of Women", Ruskai says, "In the past, scientists have often emphasized the differences between science and other fields in ways which emphasized the objective and analytic aspects, while obscuring the role of creativity and intuition" (p.9). This statement touches upon an issue that I think has been greatly overlooked. This issue is one that the language used by scientists and non-scientists in discussing science may be playing a huge part in the perpetuation of the very stereotypes that we are trying to counter.

Elizabeth Ver Hoeve
The Story of Evolution and the
Evolution of Stories
Grobstein
Tuesday, March 20, 2007

Escaping from the Sea: Transforming the Written Word

Imagine the classic American childhood game of “telephone.” One player invents a simple phrase and whispers it into the ear of the closest player – Sarah diligently walks her rambunctious dog every day after dinner. The second player listens, interprets, and translates the message for the next person, who in turn, translates the message until it has gone full circle and is finally repeated aloud. Although initially strong both grammatically and logically, the structure and meaning of the original message deteriorates as increasing numbers of people attempt to repeat it. In the end, the misconstrued phrase – Sarah, the rabid dog, walks dinner – resembles the original message but most would agree that something was lost in translation.

      Many individuals in the contemporary United States view slavery as one of our country’s biggest embarrassments and wrong-doings.  About 230 years ago in United States, slavery had very opponents and was widely accepted as a social norm in American culture.  Although slavery is frowned upon today, tension between races and the idea of racial superiority still exists.  Many believe that prejudice, stereotypes, and racist attitudes have been dwindling over time.  These sentiments, however, are no less prevalent than they were when slavery was flourishing in our country.  Instead, they exist in different forms that are accepted by our culture today.  The mindset, not the existence, of racial superiority by citizens of the United States has evolved from the past until now and continues to evolve in our society. 
 

          The idea of evolution as just a “good story” has sparked many controversial thoughts within me. After much deliberation over the idea of “truth” and “usefulness,” I realized that thinking of ideas as “good stories” could be fascinatingly “generative.” Race is one of these “stories” that I have come to question. As a child, I was taught that race was a scientifically and socially accurate way of classifying people. According to this story, everybody belongs to a race according to lineage, appearance, language, geography, etc. Most often, however, race classifications were easily assigned to people based on split second observations of skin, hair, and facial features (1). Shadows of doubt were always cast, however, when classifications became blurry. What was I supposed to think of a man whose skin was dark, whose eyes were slanted, and whose hair was blonde? Did he simply belong to a race that I did not yet know of? Or was he a negligible anomaly to the race explanation? Or what if race wasn’t really the best explanation at all?

When we examine the world around us we intuitively recognize that there are certain groups of similar characteristics that are pervasive among certain groups of objects (by object I also mean living things).  Because of this repetition of similar characteristics being manifested together in a number of objects we are able to then call those objects by the same name.  Thus, when a set of objects are called by the same name it is understood that those objects are in possession of similar characters.  In our daily lives we perform this activity of discerning whether an object has a similar collection of characteristics as that of another object which has already been assigned a name.  When we decide that the object in question does indeed have a similar collection of characteristics we can then comfortably call it by the same name of the known object.   This characteristics-assorting, name-giving activity is often done so rapidly at imperceptible speed that we fail to see that the conceptual foundation, on which this activity is based, is actually quite precarious.
 

In chapter fourteen, The Evolution of Meaning, of his book Darwin’s Dangerous Idea, Dennett explores not only the great philosopher’s question, the meaning of life; but also what inspires a man to pursue that question, and if there is a meaning or purpose behind the pursuit of this inquiry itself.  Dennett makes the point that because of the specific evolution of humans and the development of language, there must be a direct correlation between language and meaning, and therefore also a meaning to life.  Most philosophers look at the question of the meaning of life from the perspective of accomplishment, while Dennett’s internal scientist examines whether we have meaning in context with the future.