Week 8 – Being Human in STEM, The Experience & The Data II (Sample)

This is an out-of-class activity completed by HSTEM students in response to the reading materials provided. Here, an HSTEM student’s responses to this activity are shown as a sample of what an HSTEM instructor may expect.

Materials

  1. In Defense of Merit in Science Abbot, D.; Bikfalvi, A.; BleskeRechek, A.L.; Bodmer, W.; Boghossian, P.; Carvalho, C.M.; Ciccolini, J.; Coyne, J.A.; Gauss, J.; Gill, P.M.W.; Jitomirskaya, S.; Jussim, L.; Krylov, A.I.; Loury, G.C.; Maroja, L.; McWhorter, J.H.; Moosavi, S.; Nayana Schwerdtle, P.; Pearl, J.; QuintanillaTornel, M.A.; Schaefer, H.F., III; Schreiner, P.R.; Schwerdtfeger, P.; Shechtman, D.; Shifman, M.; Tanzman, J.; Trout, B.L.; Warshel, A.; West, J.D. In Defense of Merit in Science. Journal of Controversial Ideas 2023, 3(1), 1; doi:10.35995/jci03010001. (20 pages)
  2. Recasting the agreements to re-humanize STEM education, Imad Mays, Reder Michael, Rose Madelyn, Frontiers in Education Vol. 8, 2023 (18 page)

Optional

  • Opinion | A Paper That Says Science Should Be Impartial Was Rejected by Major Journals. You Can’t Make This Up. – The New York Times
  • Opinion | Applying D.E.I. to Science – The New York Times

    Beginning of Module Work

    Please complete these to help build your academic foundation and prepare for active participation during our discussion.

    Part 1: Summary & Reflection

    Please capture, using bullet points, your top 2-3 key points for each article.

    In Defense of Merit in Science

    • “Scientific truths are universal and independent of the personal attributes of the scientist. Science knows no ethnicity, gender, or religion”
    • I chose this quote because I do not agree with its sentiment. I think we’ve known enough to know that this could apply to some scientific aspects, but science involving humans can’t be universal and it does know gender, ethnicity, and other identities. For example, genetic differences can affect how some diseases show up in the body. Or the way one drug affects one person might not apply to a different person. Ultimately, I think science is evolving in a way that shows there really are variations that need to take humanistic identity differences into account in order to be truly equitable or ‘universal.’
    • Beliveing Approach:
      • Something I could agree with is that science CAN be unbiased. The whole premise of science is that there is adequate inquiry and evidence to point towards a certain viewpoint that is more viable. Some evidence based science like chemistry is clear cut and can be as straightforward as adding one chemical to another leads to a set reaction. Additionally, I do agree that politicizing science and its sort of being a part of the capitalist system does make it harder to keep science purely seeking truth and understanding in the world we live in. It is possible that taking out extra factors makes science more objective and a “truth” in some ways.
    • Skeptical Approach:
      • Despite some truth in science being a standard and uniform, I find fault in the argument that it should be entirely a merit system or that it doesn’t have much to do with identity other than in the sense that identity in science limits who can be in STEM and who can’t. Science has been more expansive over the years in ways that have included scientific differences between gender, race, ethnicity, etc. Additionally, resorting to only focusing on merit might sound a lot like the argument for affirmative action. However, basing science on merit does not mean it will be accessible to those who have said merit but don’t have the means to be seen. And more often than not it is marginalized scientists that do not get the same kind of visibility. It is overall hard to claim science as truth, because the nature of the word does not allow it to be as unbiased as we hope for it to be in many areas.

    Recasting the argument to re-humanize STEM education

    • “To humanize STEM is to intentionally and explicitly ground all of our work in our responsibility to recognize and respect the inherent worth and dignity of all of our students, regardless of their background or field of study. Toward that end, we must recognize the ways in which power dynamics, privilege, and social identities impact the way knowledge is produced and disseminated within academic settings.”
    • I chose this quote because I really appreciate this definition of what humanity in STEM can look like. I strongly agree with the emphasis of including aspects of identity into STEM knowing that they play a factor in determining who gets access to STEM.
    • Believing Approach:
      • I really liked and appreciated this article! I am in support of the idea that STEM needs to be humanized. The article spoke about decentering competition, perfection, workaholism and a teacher centered learning approach in the classroom and I find myself in agreement with all of it! One of the problems of neglecting humanity in STEM in favor of it being fully “objective” forces people into an overdrive in search of a singular truth based on quantitative measures. And as much as I do believe that the quantitative reasoning that’s a part of STEM is important in introducing new and important information, I do think that moving more towards encouraging multiplicity and abundance in thought as well as being inclusive of the people and nature aspect of STEM is equally as important and needed.
    • Skeptical Approach:
      • I found the article to be so important in the solutions it outlined with finding new agreements in STEM rather than sticking to eurocentric ideals. However, the only thing I found myself being skeptical about is the feasibility of change within STEM, and the amount of work and time it would take to install these ideals. Thinking of diversity within STEM, I remember the graphs we saw and how little some of the demographics in terms of who is in the workforce changed in the span of a decade. It is important to recognize the efforts being put in place to work towards creating a healthy and humanized STEM space, but it is also necessary to realize that the change needed takes a lot of time and significant intentionality in order to be visible.

    Putting articles in converstaion with eachother

    • I found the arguments from the two articles to be opposing each other. The merit defense article seemed to be more about sticking with objectivity and ‘truth’ in STEM, and especially taking the conversation about people away from the table. But the recasting article emphasizes that we actually need to bring in the individuality and humanity aspect to STEM in order to thrive. The first article interestingly argued that we need to stop viewing STEM as racist, colonial, or exclusive, but the second article argues that we certainly need to consider these factors and work towards disintegrating that eurocentric structure that is very much in existence. One notion I also saw being represented in different outlooks is objectivity in STEM. While the first article was set on science being objective, the second article was encouraging scientists to embrace ambiguity and the existence of multiple ideals within science. Additionally, the second article challenges and acknowledges that even in “truth” and “objectivity” said to be in STEM there is still a wide eurocentric influence in the way we perform science that can’t be ignored. Overall I found the second article to provide a great counteracting argument to the first.