Science Is Objective, Society Isn’t
Science Is Objective, Society Isn’t
A LISA centric discussion of diversity.
Abstract.
Abstract.
As an international collaboration in physical science LISA is already very diverse in terms of nationalities and cultures. However, there are multiple diversities to consider. This presentation uses examples from the USA, to address global issues and their impact on LISA.
The hypothesis is that human societies contain systemic biases, racism and discrimination. Organizations like LISA can try to mitigate these not “solve” them.
The hypothesis is that human societies contain systemic biases, racism and discrimination. Organizations like LISA can try to mitigate these not “solve” them.
Contents
Contents
Physical Science And Social Science.
Evolution of Anti-Blackness in the Americas.
Homophobia and Transphobia in the Black Community.
Mitigation Strategies.
Quantifying Successful Diversification
Online version of this talk is available at https : // www.wolframcloud.com/obj/ae3dbff7 - e377 - 4 c70 - b503 - a379ca1cf589
Physical Science And Social Science.
Lets Talk About Physical Science.
Lets Talk About Physical Science.
Our Objective Science, Our Strength.
Our Objective Science, Our Strength.
Physics and Astrophysics are hard objective sciences. This is our greatest advantage.
At least we can be certain once someone is in the field the evaluation of their work will be objective.
Example My Very Preliminary Work.
Example My Very Preliminary Work.
As physical scientists solving differential equations, interpreting them, comparing the results to observations.
DSolveψ''[ℱ]-BesselI[0,2ℱ]ψ[ℱ]0,ψ[0]1,ψ'[0]0,ψ[ℱ],ℱ
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2
ℏ
2m
2
ℱ
Out[]=
DSolve-BesselI[0,2ℱ]ψ[ℱ]-[ℱ]0,ψ[0]1,[0]0,ψ[ℱ],ℱ
2
ℱ
2
ℏ
′′
ψ
2m
′
ψ
Hmm an equation Mathematica can’t just solve for me? Approximate!
Example My Very Preliminary Work.
Example My Very Preliminary Work.
In[]:=
Sol=DSolveψ''[ℱ]-ψ[ℱ]0,ψ[0]1,ψ'[0]0,ψ[ℱ],ℱ//FullSimplify
-1
2
3
∑
n=0
2
ℱ
n
()
2
ℱ
2
1
2
(n!)
Out[]=
ψ[ℱ]DifferentialRootFunction{y.,x.},(36+36+9+)y.[x.]+18[x.]0,y.[0]1,[0]0[ℱ]
2
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4
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6
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8
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′′
y.
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y.
In[]:=
Plot[{Evaluate[ψ[ℱ]/.Sol]},{ℱ,-10,10},PlotRangeAll,AxesLabel{"ℱ-field","ψ[ℱ]"}]
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Either Observed In Nature Or Not.
Either Observed In Nature Or Not.
Out[]=
Either this wave or some physical consequence of this wave could be observed and verified or refuted. Long term that process cannot be discriminatory since the true solution to a problem will stand the test of time.
Personnel decisions, hiring, tenure, promotion, funding, and firing can be biased. That aspect of physical science is like any other human enterprise.
Personnel decisions, hiring, tenure, promotion, funding, and firing can be biased. That aspect of physical science is like any other human enterprise.
Social Science.
Social Science.
We are not social scientists but this is a sociological and socio-historical problem. The first bias we need to confront is the bias between hard science and the “ologies”.
Social Science: Often Hostile To Physical Science
Social Science: Often Hostile To Physical Science
EmbeddedService[{"YouTube","C9SiRNibD14"}]
Out[]=
Often we face the biased accusation that physical science is racist.
Often we face being told that objectivity does not exist.
Alternatively we face being told science like physics are simplistic and only concerned with simple systems etc.
Social Science: Systems Of People
Social Science: Systems Of People
Sociological phenomena, such as racism, emerge from complex systems of people evolving over centuries and millennia.
They are analogous to thermodynamic systems. .
No one particle in a gas has a temperature each has a physical state of kinetic energy.
No one person is “a racist”, or “a transphobe”, or a “xenophobe”, each of us holds various biased attitudes.
Racism in a society towards a specified group is analogous to temperature in a physical system. It only applies to the whole and influences the parts.
Discrimination VS Racism.
Discrimination VS Racism.
Discrimination is an adverse action taken against a person for any reason.
Racism is a cultural system established over time to justify the dehumanization of a group of people.
Anyone can suffer discrimination for any number of biased reasons, few groups have suffered racism.
For example : In the United States there does exist a biased belief that racism only exist in the southern US. That people from the south are all ignorant. The death of George Floyd was in a state which never had Black slavery.
Discrimination VS Racism.
Discrimination VS Racism.
Racism evolves gradually from more common kinds of bias.
In the new world Blacks, American Indians and Jewish Americans have faced true racism. All three experienced the top levels.
Many others face lesser forms of bias and discrimination.
Evolution of Anti-Blackness in the Americas
Racism In The Americas
Racism In The Americas
Slavery has existed in every culture, including indigenous America.
Old world disease spread via American Indian trade networks and killed up to 90% of the population of the Americas.
New World Black Chattel Slavery, from 1526 in Latin America, held that Negros were inherently inferior and subhuman.
In Anglo America, specifically Virginia the first Blacks were recorded by John Rolfe, that one, as being brought on a Dutch “man o warre” in 1619 and traded for food and supplies.
Racism In The Americas
Racism In The Americas
The first “20 and odd” Angolans were held as indentured servants given that was the only legal framework in English law at the time.
Some of them gained freedom after a time. Some even owned land. Most did not last. (Colonial Virginia had very high mortality overall.)
Gradually by 1650-1670 the legal framework for race based slavery of African descended people was established.
It would evolve until Dredd Scott V Sanford, in 1857 which removed even the most basic legal rights. i.e. the right for a Black person, like Scott, to sue, or be a citizen even if free.
Racism In The Americas
Racism In The Americas
Abolition was followed by 100 years of dejure systematic racism.
Our culture still carries defacto systematic racism. Black people being seen as ineducable animals that need to be controlled.
A slave born in 1850 who lived to 100, would’ve died in 1950. Anyone born in 1940 or earlier would remember them.
There are millions of Americans who knew someone born a slave.
A Super Continent Wide Issue.
A Super Continent Wide Issue.
Slavery primarily of African Americans lasted until almost 1890.
Society Produces Scientist In A Biased Way.
Society Produces Scientist In A Biased Way.
Given all of the headwinds of society only the most resourceful, most driven African American, or American Indian people will reach graduate school, graduate, and persevere in STEM.
Proof Science Reflects Societal Biases.
Proof Science Reflects Societal Biases.
Satyendra Nath Bose, of Bose-Einstein statistics, had a difficult time finding a tenured faculty job ostensibly due to not having a PhD and was likely denied a share of a Nobel due to racism
Emmy Noether, faced anti-semitism, and sexism enough to make employment more difficult and deny her a Nobel for her fundamental work.
Edward Bouchet, son of a former slave attained a PhD in physics with a dissertation in measuring refractive indices, in 1876. One of the first Americans of any race to do so. He was denied any university work.
Another 42 years would pass until another African American attained a PhD in Physics.
Homophobia and Transphobia in the Black Community.
No Group Is Above Discriminating
No Group Is Above Discriminating
Black culture is very homophobic and even more transphobic.
For example this attack by a mob of Black people on Iyanna Dior a Black transgender woman in East St Paul, Minnesota. Her crime was having dented a car. Watch this at your own risk.
Thankfully she survived and is relatively ok. A similar situation last year did not end so well for Muhlaysia Booker. She was latter found shot in the head.
For example this attack by a mob of Black people on Iyanna Dior a Black transgender woman in East St Paul, Minnesota. Her crime was having dented a car. Watch this at your own risk.
Thankfully she survived and is relatively ok. A similar situation last year did not end so well for Muhlaysia Booker. She was latter found shot in the head.
Two Black Transgender Women Killed Last Week
Two Black Transgender Women Killed Last Week
Dominique Remmie Fells and Riah Milton were found dead in separate incidents. Too often the assailant turns out to be Black person.
Meanwhile much of the Black community was more riled up by Starbucks not buying BlackLivesMatter gear for their baristas.
#BlackTransLivesMatter #AllBlackLivesMatter
#BlackTransLivesMatter #AllBlackLivesMatter
Partly in response to these events, a #BlackTransLivesMatter rally drew a huge diverse crowd tens of thousands in Brooklyn New York.
Mitigation Strategies
Systemic Solutions: Addressing Society
Systemic Solutions: Addressing Society
The true issue is society wide defacto and even de jure discrimination against various groups.
Take an active approach, Be the change you want to make.
Take an active approach, Be the change you want to make.
If you are an educator implement multiple methods for objectively measuring student mastery in admission and grading.
If you are in industry or government work try to work with administration to implement policies that truly protect minorities.
Within LISA Supporting Institutions
Within LISA Supporting Institutions
Depending on where you work seek to retain minority talent.
In academia: reach out to students who show interest. Give them a challenging LISA related task to do for credit if possible.
In Space agencies: engage in politics (dirty word I get it).
Diversity in government work is political.
Be the person who “sent them”.
Fight for diversity as much as you can, and be safe.
Diversity Promoting Policies LISA
Diversity Promoting Policies LISA
Reserve at least one seat on every decision making committee for an underrepresented minority or a woman.
Underrepresented within LISA not necessarily globally.
Possibly refuse to work with organizations or states which are currently participating in genocide, slavery, or ethnic cleansing as classically defined.
Anything which is truly analogous to Black Chattel Slavery, The Holocaust, or Indian Removal and Death marches is not OK.
Policing borders, refusing refugees, employing paid prison labor, building the TMT*atop Maunakea, etc are not crimes against humanity. (Talk to pro and anti TMT Kanaka Maoli about this though.)
Concentrating millions of people in concentration/reeducation camps and forcing unpaid labor while denying them their language is probably genocide. LISA should not work with a country that does that.
Reach out to LISA researchers across all boundaries to collaborate in meaningful ways.
Diversity in the Heart of LISA
Diversity in the Heart of LISA
Encourage Diversity of Scientific Thought.
Realize there are no stupid questions, we are working on a problem where big surprises are hopefully possible.
Read the publications of working groups other than your own and try to understand them. Listen to their talks at LISA meetings or other conferences.
Reach out to LISA researchers across all boundaries to collaborate in meaningful ways.
If we build a strong community more people will want to join.
Quantifying Successful Diversification
Goals to Strive For.
Goals to Strive For.
Representation in LISA needs to be at least proportional to that which is observed in Astronomy and Physics as a whole.
Representation in LISA which is proportional the populations of the member countries.
Ultimate goal: representation from as many countries as possible and from every inhabited continent.
A “diversity temperature” that is in equilibrium with the human population.
Closing Discussion.
Closing Discussion.
What can each of us do in the next six months to encourage any type of diversity in our little corner of LISA? What can we do over the next year?
What Policies might LISA implement to encourage diversity without being unfair to anyone? Encouraging action VS Affirmative action?
In case anyone is curious about BesselI[0, 2 ℱ ]
In case anyone is curious about BesselI[0, 2 ℱ ]
is effectively a constant
ℱ is a field which is itself .... something I' ll describe in a publication if I convince myself that this isn' t nonsense after another year or two of study.
Similar in some ways to a harmonic oscillator.