The_Urban_Scientist's blog
Dr. James Sherley has been dealing with obstacles to his success as a scientist and academic with the department of Biological Engineering at MIT. Although his story in unfortunate, that type of frustration is routinely experienced by many African-American scientists and graduate students. Such treatment and behavior creates unnecessary barriers to success. What a pity, because such unpleasant experiences can actually deter promising African-Americans (and others) from pursuing careers in science and academia.
Two ninth graders from the Chicago Public School District were chosen to work along side archaeologists from the Field Museum of Chicago in Kenya this summer. The trip is being sponsored by Ernst & Young, the major benefactor of the charter school the students attend.
"African-Americans make up 13 percent of the United States population, but comprise only 5 percent of those employed in the life, physical, and social sciences. Or with this: less than 3 percent of Ph.D.s in biology and chemistry are held by African-Americans. Different statistics pepper various reports, but none dispute the central fact, that African-Americans do not hold life science jobs in numbers commensurate with their representation in the US population."
Recently, Time Magazine and Ebony Magazine (the largest Black general interest periodical) published a list of the "Most Influential People in the World/America". The number of Black scientists on both lists were unsurprisingly low. Time listed 2 black scientists, Ebony listed 1. (Dr. Neil DeGrasse Tyson was on both lists). But both lists beg the question: How can we showcase the scientific contributions made by minorities to the general public?
Having a society that fails to understand the role and importance of science in their lives is deterimental. Citizens who do not understand their bodies or the world around them or how we, as humans, shape the world - i.e., SCIENCE - are at a great disadvantage and are less able to participate in modern life.
A group of molecular plant biologists recently retracted their research article that was published in Science Magazine 2005 (volume 309, p. 1694). There were several gross anomalies with the data that the first author mis-interpreted. The second through fifth authors issued a complete retraction of the article, the findings and all interpretations of the data. It seems the first author was very liberal in his/her data generation, analysis, and/or interpretation. The original first author does not co-sign the retraction. Hmm... this smells a bit like academic dishonesty.
Science news stories share breakthroughs and discoveries with the general public. The public learns new information, but these reports seldom help people understand HOW the discovery was made. It was recently announced that a team of researchers found no link between breast cancer and abortion. Using this news story, I shed some light on the process of science in an effort to help general audiences understand more about science in general.
