Session 6
Scientists would like to think that their work is done for the benefit of all, but it is evident that the benefits are not shared equally, even in the countries in which the work is done. This is so because of numerous factors—most obviously, economic disparities that influence whether people can afford the services and products that science enables, but also because of location, educational levels, gender, race, and ethnicity. Furthermore, we would like to believe that opportunities to participate in scientific work are available equally to all who have the necessary talents, but it is evident that social networks, gender, and race strongly influence access to those opportunities.
In this session, we will talk about some notable examples of the lack of equity, inclusion, and diversity, and we will discuss ways in which the more subtle factors—especially issues of gender and ethnicity—can be studied, understood, and perhaps ameliorated.
In doing the readings below, think about the following questions:
- How can we distinguish between prejudice and other factors to account for the under-representation of female and minority personnel in the sciences?
- Some of the assigned papers make use of social sciences to enhance understanding of gender and racial disparities. What kinds of changes in the medical and scientific enterprise would you recommend after reading these papers?
- What are the possible origins of the disparities in health outcomes?
- How does the current debate about US immigration policies affect science?
- How do recent discussions about bullying and sexual harassment in the workplace affect the conduct of scientists and how should such behaviors be viewed in the context of misconduct in science?
I have also attached a confidential manuscript that a few of us wrote to explain why and how we should take stronger measures to improve the diversity of the scientific work force. It has been submitted to Science magazine for consideration for publication, and I would like to get your responses to this essay during our discussion. But I also request that you not show it to others since it is still under review. (A recent short essay that describes a longer effort to achieve equity in STEM subjects is described here: https://science.sciencemag.org/content/371/6532/900)
Assigned readings
- Social scientists have been studying the factors that influence the participation of population groups in the scientific enterprise. Here are two recent, much discussed examples of such studies that might help address the problems of inclusion and fair treatment of minority populations in the US scientific enterprise:
C.A. Moss-Racusin et al, Science faculty: subtle gender biases favor male students. PNAS 109: 16474, 2012. http://www.pnas.org/content/109/41/16474.full.pdf
Donna K. Ginther1,*, Walter T. Schaffer2, Joshua Schnell3, Beth Masimore3, Faye Liu3, Laurel L. Haak3, Raynard Kington2,†
Race, Ethnicity, and NIH Research Awards
Science 19 Aug 2011:Vol. 333, Issue 6045, pp. 1015-1019 DOI: 10.1126/science.1196783 http://science.sciencemag.org/content/333/6045/1015/tab-pdf
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21852498
- Last year, the NY Times reported a story about an apparent inequity in the size of NIH grants awarded to men and women: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/05/science/women-scientists-grants.html?smprod=nytcore-ipad&smid=nytcore-ipad-share
A study finds that female scientists who win grants from the National Institutes of Health get $41,000 less than men.
- Another example of lack of equity is more subtle, but is at least partly due to the rising intense competition between the US and China in areas of science and technology and to a few cases of misbehavior. An editorial on the ensuing controversy has just appeared in Science and I hope to discuss this to provide an additional dimension to considerations of diversity and equity.
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/371/6532/867/tab-pdf
- One of the benefits of science that we might expect to be available to all in an enlightened society is advanced health care. The following two papers are classic studies that attempt to identify factors accounting for disparate outcomes:
Peter B Bach MD, Laura D Cramer, Sc.M, Joan L Warrant Phd, and Colin B. Begg, PhD
Racial differences in the treatment of early-stage lung cancer New Engl J.Med. 341:1198, 1999.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10519898/
KEVIN A. SCHULMAN, M.D., JESSE A. BERLIN, SC.D., WILLIAM HARLESS, PH.D., JON F. KERNER, PH.D., SHYRL SISTRUNK, M.D., BERNARD J. GERSH, M.B., CH.B., D.PHIL., ROSS DUBÉ, CHRISTOPHER K. TALEGHANI, M.D., JENNIFER E. BURKE, M.A., M.S., SANKEY WILLIAMS, M.D., JOHN M. EISENBERG, M.D., AND JOSÉ J. ESCARCE, M.D., PH.D.
THE EFFECT OF RACE AND SEX ON PHYSICIANS’ RECOMMENDATIONS FOR CARDIAC CATHETERIZATION New England Journal of Medicine 340:618, 1999. http://www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1056/NEJM199902253400806
- Another aspect of changes in health care may depend on the way in which clinical trials are done; here is an illustration of the problem from a recent news article:
(“As immunotherapy research takes off, the patients getting the treatment have been overwhelmingly white. Researchers know this and say they are trying to correct it.”)
- Some corrective actions are occurring here in our New York institutions, with a focus on cancer genomes in ethnically diverse communities: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/11/science/genetic-cancer-research-race.html
Covid-19 issues
We all know that prevention and health care have not been equitably distributed during the pandemic and these inequities at least partially explain some of the discrepancies in incidence, severity, and outcomes. Two recent examples—out of many—can be read here: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/09/us/coronavirus-vaccine.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/10/health/coronavirus-hospitals-vaccinations.html
We will discuss this and other examples that we’ve all been exposed to in this session and the later session (#9) that examine Covid dilemmas arising from poor governance.
Additional readings (not required but interesting):
- Several interesting women scientists have been written about. One of them, the astrophysicist Vera Rubin, died recently: here is an obituary by Dennis Overbye:
(“Dr. Rubin, who was awarded the National Medal of Science in 1993, ushered in the cosmic realization that most of the universe is invisible.”)
- Another, perhaps the most famous, woman scientist is the crystallographer, Rosalind Franklin, about whom numerous biographies (including Rosalind Franklin and DNA by Anne Sayre [Norton, 1975]) and a play (Photograph 51) have been written.
- Milie Hughes-Fulford, a woman astronaut who did experiments in space, died this month. Her obituary is also interesting: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/11/science/space/millie-hughes-fulford-dead.html
- A recently published account by a woman who studies plant biology has received a lot of praise last year:
Hope Jahren, Lab Girl, Knopf, 2016. (Reviewed in Nature in 2016)
- An exceptional Stanford neuroscientist, Ben Barres, also a transgendered person, died in December 2017, and the obituaries in Nature (553: 282, 2018) and the New York Times (December 29, 2017) are very informative about the role gender plays in science.
- A notable black embryologist, E.E. Just, is the subject of another terrific biography:
Manning, K. R., Black Apollo of Science. The Life of Ernest Everett Just. Oxford University Press, New York/Oxford, 1983.
A briefer version of Just’s career, based on Manning’s book, can be viewed here:http://www.genetics.org/content/179/4/1735
- George Carruthers was an African-American astronomer who set up the first laboratory on the moon. His very recent obituary is also interesting reading:
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00461-w
- One recent entry on the occasion of the 200th anniversary of the birth of Frederick Douglas from the NY Times online, February 22nd about how scientists construed race in the 19th century:
- Not so long ago, Jewish scientists were also subject to life-threatening discrimination. Some of it is summarized by Jeremy Bernstein’s essay in The New York Review of Books, December 8, 2016 (“Great Scientists Against Terrible Odds”)
