Cargando…
Women in science: myth, harsh reality, or advantage
To initiate discussion on women in science, we begin with Gerald Edelman’s definition: “Science is imagination in the service of the verifiable truth,” which underscores “verifiability,” truth reached by evidence, as the pathway science charts to Truth. “Verifiability” is named after the Roman Godde...
Autor principal: | |
---|---|
Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Frontiers Media S.A.
2023
|
Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10654634/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/38021232 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2023.1247242 |
_version_ | 1785136667812691968 |
---|---|
author | Feldman, Ruth |
author_facet | Feldman, Ruth |
author_sort | Feldman, Ruth |
collection | PubMed |
description | To initiate discussion on women in science, we begin with Gerald Edelman’s definition: “Science is imagination in the service of the verifiable truth,” which underscores “verifiability,” truth reached by evidence, as the pathway science charts to Truth. “Verifiability” is named after the Roman Goddess Veritas, the daughter of Cronos and the mother of Virtus, suggesting that mythology viewed science as embodied by a female, embedded in its historical time, and aimed to breed values. We contemplate three perspectives on the topic and discuss their potential risks. The Veracity (Veritas) Perspective holds that science is impartial to the gender, race, political camp, or religious affiliation of its practitioner and from this perspective “women in sciences” is an oxymoron; science is, essentially, genderless. We argue that this perspective is misleading. Becoming a scientist requires education, resources, encouragement, training, role models, time, and funding, and the lack of such provisions banned women from the gates of Truth. The Harsh Reality perspective brings data presenting a grim picture. From 1902 to 2022 only 3.6% of Nobel Prizes in sciences were awarded to women and percentages of women in top academic positions are a third or lower across the US and Europe despite earning about 50% of PhDs in sciences. We contemplate internal and external reasons for this reality. Finally, the Potential Advantage position asks whether women may have unique sensitivities in the road to cumulative knowledge. We base our discussion on 20th century philosophical models that call to move from the metaphysical and abstract to the daily and contextual in the acquisition of knowledge and on research describing the distinct neural pathways to motherhood and fatherhood. We conclude by highlighting our unique historical time and the emergence of novel topics in neuroscience through the work of female and male scientists; interaction synchrony, inter-brain communication, and social and affiliative neuroscience. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-10654634 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2023 |
publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-106546342023-01-01 Women in science: myth, harsh reality, or advantage Feldman, Ruth Front Hum Neurosci Human Neuroscience To initiate discussion on women in science, we begin with Gerald Edelman’s definition: “Science is imagination in the service of the verifiable truth,” which underscores “verifiability,” truth reached by evidence, as the pathway science charts to Truth. “Verifiability” is named after the Roman Goddess Veritas, the daughter of Cronos and the mother of Virtus, suggesting that mythology viewed science as embodied by a female, embedded in its historical time, and aimed to breed values. We contemplate three perspectives on the topic and discuss their potential risks. The Veracity (Veritas) Perspective holds that science is impartial to the gender, race, political camp, or religious affiliation of its practitioner and from this perspective “women in sciences” is an oxymoron; science is, essentially, genderless. We argue that this perspective is misleading. Becoming a scientist requires education, resources, encouragement, training, role models, time, and funding, and the lack of such provisions banned women from the gates of Truth. The Harsh Reality perspective brings data presenting a grim picture. From 1902 to 2022 only 3.6% of Nobel Prizes in sciences were awarded to women and percentages of women in top academic positions are a third or lower across the US and Europe despite earning about 50% of PhDs in sciences. We contemplate internal and external reasons for this reality. Finally, the Potential Advantage position asks whether women may have unique sensitivities in the road to cumulative knowledge. We base our discussion on 20th century philosophical models that call to move from the metaphysical and abstract to the daily and contextual in the acquisition of knowledge and on research describing the distinct neural pathways to motherhood and fatherhood. We conclude by highlighting our unique historical time and the emergence of novel topics in neuroscience through the work of female and male scientists; interaction synchrony, inter-brain communication, and social and affiliative neuroscience. Frontiers Media S.A. 2023-10-25 /pmc/articles/PMC10654634/ /pubmed/38021232 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2023.1247242 Text en Copyright © 2023 Feldman. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. |
spellingShingle | Human Neuroscience Feldman, Ruth Women in science: myth, harsh reality, or advantage |
title | Women in science: myth, harsh reality, or advantage |
title_full | Women in science: myth, harsh reality, or advantage |
title_fullStr | Women in science: myth, harsh reality, or advantage |
title_full_unstemmed | Women in science: myth, harsh reality, or advantage |
title_short | Women in science: myth, harsh reality, or advantage |
title_sort | women in science: myth, harsh reality, or advantage |
topic | Human Neuroscience |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10654634/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/38021232 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2023.1247242 |
work_keys_str_mv | AT feldmanruth womeninsciencemythharshrealityoradvantage |